Double Take
by freddlerabbit
Summary: The team tackles some new cases, and Reid meets someone who might be a perfect match. This story ALTERNATES between the fluffy romantic bit and general team/casefic, so if you don't like one of these - still, give it a try!
1. New York

**A/N: I've never written a piece of fanfic before. YOIKES. So I'm super nervous. But that being said, I would so dearly love any and all comments! I'm most concerned about OOC moments. I'm still writing the rest of the story at this point, so I'll update whenever I can through the end, and I so appreciate anyone who takes the time to read it. I hope it is enjoyable!**

**If you're not into the OC/Romance storyline, please start at Ch. 9 for general casefic!**

_Drafts of the first three chapters originally posted at the LJ Community criminalxminds under working title "Two of A Kind". That was before I knew Suspect Behavior had used that title! I was prompted to write this one because I love the Reid slash, and the dark Reid stories, but I also believe he can fundamentally be happy!_

"I'm Calla Oliver," the woman said, extending her right hand towards Hotchner for a shake. "I'm a detective here in the 1-9; I'm the one who called. I appreciate you all being here." Reid glanced around briefly as Hotch made the usual initial introductions to Detective Oliver. It was twilight in Manhattan, and the jet had landed late at Teeterboro Airport outside the city. He saw lights in office buildings, but the immediate area seemed mostly residential and fairly quiet; the foot traffic was lighter here than on some of the avenues. JJ was already on her phone, working intently on coordinating with the large amount of New York-area media centers. The discovery of the bodies had already broken, but the evening news had been scant on details and spent only about 45 seconds on the story. As Hotch pointed him out, Reid looked up, intending eye contact only brief enough to avoid rudeness. "_Dr._Reid?" Oliver commented, an eyebrow lifting. "What do you have your doctorate. . .s in?"

He caught the hesitation and the plural, and found himself more than normally impressed with this particular iteration of Local Police Officer. While he was confident that he could control his reactions carefully when called upon to do so, he tended to be open in his general interactions with colleagues, and he must have had a facial reaction that tipped her off to the inevitable correction had she said "doctorate." And that was after she had correctly deduced that his degree wasn't in medicine. "Actually, Mathematics, Chemistry, and Engineering."

Her gaze sharpened, and the eyebrow climbed higher. "That is most impressive. I'd be curious - " she cut her sentence off, gleaning the impatience of the rest of the team. "But of course, now's not the time. Please follow me, everyone."

She led them through the large blue doors into a precinct briefing room. They filed past the mostly uninterested faces of New York's Finest, settling in hard navy chairs around the conference table. The room was mostly bare, and somewhat shabby. Reid began thinking about the pattern of colored pins on the map of the city pinned to a dingy standing corkboard, but found his attention turning to Oliver as she began to outline the factors leading her to call the BAU. These were familiar to the team, of course, but they listened politely to the recital anyway. Reid found himself unaccountably curious - what had she been going to say? A sliver of his attention settled around her shoulders, quietly theorizing about this serious, quiet officer with unusual eyes, long fingers, and an interest in his degrees, as she distributed crime scene photos and pointed to details the team had identified on the trip in, not anticipating that the NYPD would have caught them.

The crimes were ugly. The team had become hardened to gore and viciousness beyond anyone's wildest nightmares, but some circumstances could still rouse expressions of disgust - at least, from anyone besides Hotch and Rossi. As Oliver spoke, calmly, she pinned crime scene photos to the board, next to the map, bending sideways to straighten an errant edge. Her voice didn't quiver, and her face showed no particular expression.

Someone had been seeking out twins in Manhattan - in the case where the siblings had lived apart, presumably kidnapping the local one and using her to lure the other to town. Brothers or sisters were held captive for indeterminate periods of time - although the most recently murdered victims showed some signs of recent, drastic weight loss - the skinned bodies, wrapped in shredded garbage bags, were left in the dumpsters of the Public Library branch on 67th Street.

There had been three found in the past week, in different stages of decomp - MEs were having a hard time deciding how old the oldest pair of bodies was, but they appeared to be older than eight months. The most recent pair had been found the previous night, and had been dead no longer than a week.

The geography wasn't clear yet, certainly - on the curling map, the blue pins represented the residences of the male pair; the green, where three female twins had lived. One had lived in Ohio. Following the briefing, Morgan voiced an initial query - in a city known for having tiny living spaces, how could the UnSub retain the bodies in such a state for so long without being discovered? Reid thought it was reasonable to assume the UnSub lived in an outer borough, or suburb - or was rich enough to own an incredible amount of property - or potentially had access to storage at work. But these seemed like obvious answers, and he hesitated before providing them. The team looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to respond; he felt obligated to chime in after the noticeable pause.

"I'm not sure I have much to offer yet," he said apologetically, then proposed the various theories. Oliver, arms at her sides, looked quizzically between Reid and the others, clearly perceiving a minor tension. "Well, I know for damn sure he or she's not keeping them in my apartment," she said. The comment worked to break the tension, and she stayed to follow up with a few more details before leaving the team to their work.

Oliver knew the facts, and a good eye for details; she was able to describe to the team the way the bags had been shredded and knotted, and how the bodies had been placed in the dumpsters, rather than thrown, based on the pattern of the trash surrounding and beneath them. She was specific about when she was reasoning from evidence and it was clear at the end that her presentation commended her to the entire team.

As she left, Hotchner began laying the groundwork for a profile, and the team batted ideas back and forth. At the end of twenty minutes of discussion, the room broke apart to their respective destinations. They currently didn't have anything more than conjecture around the idea that the selection of twins and the skinning of the victims indicated an obsession with appearances - similarities or differences, it was unclear. If the UnSub wanted to stress that people are all the same underneath, why select twins in the first place? If the UnSub wanted to stress that you can't tell much from appearances, why remove the entire epidermis?

Because the geography initially offered few clues, Reid's first task was to focus on victimology, to see if he could uncover more than twinship. He therefore walked to Oliver's desk, which he could see through the glass pane on the briefing room door, and requested the highest-resolution versions of the crime scene photos. He also asked where he could obtain coffee.

As she led him back through the station, he found himself launching into unprovoked statistics. "While New York City generally has a similar concentration of adult twins to other urban areas, recently, there has been an increase in the rate of twin births since 2006. It's likely that this is just a statistically insignificant fluctuation that only appears meaningful because people don't really understand statistics, but it is possible that the UnSub has been seeing more twins, infants and toddlers, than previously - or, responding to media coverage, has been perceiving himself to be increasingly exposed to twins. There are a lot of popular misconceptions about twins giving rise to superstitious behavior, including. . ." he trailed off slightly, aware of Oliver's eyes looking directly into his own.

While he had comfort among his BAU teammates with his own discourses, he rarely launched into such an extended one when he was interacting with local law enforcement - and when he did, he had up until now been met with unvarying discomfort from the people he was speaking to. He expected some joke from her, or fumbling, an eagerness to distract him or to leave his company. He fleetingly wished he hadn't left the room alone.

There was a pause. The green eyes flecked with gold studied him calmly. When it became clear that Reid wasn't going to continue, she spoke. "So are you favoring more now the theory that the UnSub has a personal issue with twins, as opposed to using twins to express a societal message? Perhaps he was raised with a lot of superstitions and warnings?"

"It's possible," said Reid, steepling his fingers in front of his xyphoid process. He stopped, and waited.

Oliver hesitated a moment more before turning to the precinct's coffee setup and making an introductory gesture. She then excused herself to return to other duties, and Reid returned to the conference room, thinking primarily of the colors of those eyes and remembering almost nothing of what he'd just said. Rossi had returned from his phone calls, and was seated at the table, leafing through files.

"That lady has a great eye for detail," he commented, as Reid closed the door. "I think she'll prove to be a valuable asset."

"I agree," said Reid, as his gaze was drawn again to the figure in the blue uniform, bending down to pick up a phone from a desk.

"Did you know that, actually, Calla has not been a popular name since the end of the 19th century?" He didn't catch the slight lift of Rossi's eyebrow, or the tiny quirk of a smile as he continued on about American naming trends for the next two minutes.

For the rest of the long evening, Reid circulated between the map and the case files, eventually spreading photos and paperwork across the conference table. He wished the rest of the team good night, as they left singly or in pairs, somehow motivated to keep going by himself. When he left the room at 11pm, he found himself looking towards Oliver's desk as he crossed the room towards the precinct doors.

She was speaking to a middle-aged, heavyset woman with clearly hennaed hair, disheveled and wringing her hands. The woman must have been the mother of the latest victims. She appeared to suffer from arthritis. He paused to watch, as Oliver seated her gently in a chair near the desk. The detective seemed a different personality than the calm professional who had presented the case to them earlier.

Now, her face was mobile, expressive. Her body language was different; she touched the woman gently and often, patting her on the back, holding her hand.. And yet, both personae seemed genuine.

He reflected briefly that the same could be said about him - verbose, quick, and outwardly nonemotional in most cases. People who didn't know him well often thought him cold. But he felt things, deeply - and he knew himself to be capable of gentleness and compassion. He recalled the surge of emotion as he reassured Mary Newsome.

Oliver caught his eye as he resumed his pace and began to open the door, inclining her head briefly in farewell. Reid's features briefly lifted at the contact, and his step was lighter as he passed through the doors and down the steps to rest. He thought about the colored pins as he fell asleep. Particularly the green.


	2. Coffee and Candy

**A/N – hope you are enjoying the story! Thank you for reading, and offering any comments – I'm always eager to hear if Reid starts not sounding like Reid!**

The station was mostly unlit at 7:30 the next morning, and Reid was too busy thinking about the theories he'd begun formulating to pay his surroundings much mind. It was a sticky, confusing problem, and so, he rationalized later, he could certainly be excused for starting when he felt a cool, smooth touch on his wrist.

"Coffee?" she was in the middle of saying, when he jostled the cups against her, spraying hot liquid onto her chest, so it came out "Co-oof!"

He reached towards her, wanting to apologize, to help, without a clear intention, and his fingers grazed her forearm, bringing their skin in contact again, as she brushed the front of her uniform with a wry grin. The contact set off a tiny vibration at the base of his spine; his fingers despite himself pushed gently against her a little more before withdrawing.

"I do apologize, Dr. Reid - I should know better than to sneak up on someone early in the morning." She tilted her face away from the coffee spots and her eyes met his, her smile spreading. "I always felt these uniforms were too monochrome, anyway. It's a good thing they're almost black."

"I'd noticed you were also a fan of the 'sienna ambrosia', and I prefer a brew from outside these doors, so I took the liberty. . . " He found himself once again hesitant, wishing he had more time simply to gaze into the varegated irises. They were an unusual color. And, lovely.

"Oh, no, no, thank you, that's really kind of you. Are you OK? Can I get you a. . . " he trailed off, not sure what to suggest. He reached towards her again, saw with embarrassment that he was reaching at her chest, and pulled his hands back sharply.

She continued to look at him, and her gaze somehow felt deep, analytical. He saw the telltale crinkling of the skin near her eyes before her mouth curved into a genuine smile, as she extended the one remaining cup, and said,

"How about an UnSub, Doctor? And you can put a coffee on my tab." He exhaled a short laugh, barely vocalizing, and dropped his eyes momentarily.

"Okay, I . . uh, great." She bent towards him, placing the cup on the conference table near him. "I'll worry about mopping up." He watched her walk away, surprised at the intensity of his own reactions.

"Tab," he repeated, _sotto voce_, as he walked back to the conference room. "Tab."

He wished he'd thought to tell her she could call him Spencer.

Then wondered what he was thinking. This woman was just being friendly. True, she was unusual, exhibiting more intelligence than most detectives they'd worked with in the past. And she was open to the team - but she was the one who had called them and asked for help, so it made sense that she would be. Even bringing him coffee was just a kind gesture.

He chided himself internally, refocused on the case files, and drank the coffee - much better than the station brew. Only a very tiny part of his conscious mind, he knew, was preoccupied with wondering how it was that Oliver. . . Calla Oliver . . knew exactly how much sugar he took, and what lay behind her oddly lyrical turn of phrase.

The case. Right. Something about their analysis so far irked Reid. He couldn't determine what the problem was, but he also knew that hunches could result from the subconscious aggregation and analysis of data that didn't consciously register, with varying degrees of accuracy. So he was unafraid to pursue one he couldn't dispell. The eight victims had been found in the same location - astonishingly, despite the news coverage, in the six days since the initial bodies had been discovered, a fourth set of twins had been left behind in the library's Dumpsters.

They had lived in different locations in the city - one of each set of the first female twins lived near one another, on the Upper West side, but their siblings lived in Chelsea and Queens, respectively; one of the sisters had lived in Ohio, while the other lived in the Bronx.

The most recent set of victims had actually lived together, in their parents' former house on Staten Island. The usual rules of geographic profiling just didn't apply; there were too many disparate data points.

Victimology was similarly frustrating. Different ages, different races, different genders, to start. Garcia had been unable to find anything connecting all of the victims; transaction histories, professions, activities - they were registered as different political parties or hadn't ever voted. They had different banks. They were born in different states. Some had additional siblings. Nothing connected them except twinship.

And that seemed to be all they really knew - they could form hypotheses based on twinship and identity, but they also couldn't figure out how the UnSub was selecting targets. It wasn't as though twins were on some register. (Well, one pair of twins had belonged to a local group, but none of the others had.) And inferring from census data, the UnSub had also refrained from hunting other twins, or even one of a pair, like the woman whose sibling lived in Ohio, that were closer or more connected to his first victims. Reid sighed, and ran a hand through his hair.

He dropped the case file on the table and stared without focus at the wall momentarily. They could predict a lot about the UnSub from the disposition of the bodies and the selection of twins. And the cases here didn't match anything similar outside of New York City. There was enough to build a preliminary profile, which they would then revise. But he was frustrated - this case seemed to have more open questions than was usual, and he had more than his usual impatience to answer them.

He reached into a plastic bag at his right, still absentmindedly, and unwrapped a tiny rectangle of chocolate, before realizing that he had consumed half of the bag without realizing it had been there at all. He didn't know where it had come from.

He felt a minor twinge of guilt and looked around the room briefly for someone to apologize to, or enquire of, but the room was empty. He rationalized that this room was exclusively for the use of the BAU anyway, and he couldn't imagine any of his team being honestly upset with him for eating so many of the candies. He'd probably bear some teasing, but no real resentment. He crumpled the tiny red wrapper in his palm before tossing it at a tiny wastebasket in the corner. Of course, he missed, and he walked over to retrieve the paper, bending over the plastic receptacle to drop it in. As the paper made a tiny thunk against the otherwise empty plastic bag, his eyes widened, and he reached into his pocket to dial Garcia as he hurried back to the table.

In five minutes, he was flipping excitedly through pictures and dictating something to the technical analyst, pausing briefly midway for another miniature chocolate. Garcia chastised him for eating "in the middle of these photos", but he was too focused to respond. Finally, _finally_, they had something. By the time Garcia hung up, the bag was empty.


	3. Figuring It Out

"So the connection between the victims is. . . garbage bags?" Oliver asked, an eyebrow raised, and her mouth turned slightly down at the corners. She looked unhappy with the pronouncement.

"Well, it makes sense, really" insisted Reid, stumbling over his words slightly, as he always did when he was eager to share what the team had learned.

"The insistence on the dump site - a Dumpster, in fact, a container whose sole use is the disposal of waste products. Initially, we had noted the Dumpster and garbage bags, but we didn't have enough evidence to determine, not conclusively, how important they were, or how they could be useful. There was no information to create a concrete geographical profile on the UnSub, and despite what we could theorize about what his crimes meant to him from his signature, we really didn't have any way to verify or disprove those hypotheses. Even the most recent victims, whose death seemed to continue the acceleration we'd surmised, offered no additional clues - and showed no devolution in his method, outside of his kills becoming more frequent. We were previously working on good theories, but not much evidence to analyze them."

Reid paused to look down at some of the crime scene photos on the table, and caught Oliver's intent gaze. She was leaning forward slightly, in anticipation of the details he was about to reveal. He brushed a lock of hair from his forehead, pausing before looking back up to resume.

When Reid had thrown out his candy wrapper, the seam in the translucent garbage bag lining the precinct trash can had triggered some visual memory of the crime scene photos.

Initially, the bags had been examined and catalogued, along with everything else at the scene; the techs noted that these weren't your standard kitchen bags, made of a more tough and slightly less flexible plastic. But outside of examining the bags for trace evidence, or patterns of shredding (none of the bags had been whole; they'd all been cut into three sections and wrapped around each pair of victims, with a dull blade or scissor), not much close attention had been paid to them. What Reid had recalled at that moment was seeing some tiny imperfection along an edge where the bottom seam of the bag had been - he hadn't even registered it at the time, scrutinizing the photos for clues about the bodies themselves and the surrounding trash.

But with Garcia's help, he had determined that the bags had serial numbers stamped on them, which in turn, they discovered, meant they weren't marketed to retail consumers, produced by a factory in Queens, just 0.8 miles from where one of the victims had lived. After a hurried telephone consultation with the factory's manager, Prentiss came back with the news that these particular serialized bags were produced for mortuary businesses, which had waste products that didn't need to be disposed of in accordance with medical waste regulations, but still required more than your ordinary bag. That might answer the question of where the bodies had been kept.

Later, Garcia had discovered that the numbers came from bags which shouldn't have yet been sold, and the suspect pool had become drastically narrower. (Assuming they could trust the factory's inventory.) Given the data on all the workers at the factory and the various factors likely to be present for this type of killer, the suspect pool had drastically narrowed, and from these bags, the team was ready to present a profile to the detectives of the 19th - as well as a team from the 115th precinct, which covered the factory area.

And then Hotch continued with the narration, leading the team on. Reid found that he was halfway between the table with the photos and being fully upright, his mouth partially opened to continue. He shut it quickly. This is how the team always worked, alternating parts of the presentation to make it clear that they were all participating and equally knowledgeable, and to allow the different members to assess the reactions of the local law enforcement people as they spoke.

In addition to bolstering law enforcement's confidence in the BAU, comparing notes on those reactions could be very informative about how communities were likely to react to information and requests for assistance - even in a "community" as large as a New York City precinct.

Reid leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest, listening to Hotch, then Prentiss, then Morgan, chime in with relevant details. Somehow, despite his usual lack of ego about his insights, he had wanted to keep explaining this one.

He saw Oliver, along with a few other senior Detectives, watching Morgan explain about the bags, and felt a small tension in his chest - and knew, embarrassingly, why this time felt different.

Although he could barely admit it to himself, and would have died rather than confess to anyone else, he was becoming more attracted to her with each passing day and each new collaboration - despite the fact that she appeared to treat him the same way she treated everyone else. And why wouldn't she, he thought with a tiny scowl. He was just a skinny, fast-talking, socially awkward kid. He always felt somewhat out of place among the subtleties of human behavior when he was a part of it, no matter how he excelled as a profiler of the more extreme varieties. He shook his head, briefly, and refocused on the team. He didn't catch Rossi's eyebrow lifting once again at his distraction.

The team from Queens barely disguised their skepticism at the new information from the team, but Oliver's team reacted more professionally - whether because of their close contact with the BAU or because a different attitude was needed in the parts of the city they served, Reid didn't know. But all of the officers took notes as the team spoke, and several of the Queens detectives lingered after to ask Hotch and Morgan some questions about how they should proceed. Prentiss and Morgan were headed to the factory with the detectives, to begin to interview supervisors there about workers who fit the profile.

It was more likely that the person they were looking for was part of the production staff, but the detectives said that the custodial staff and even some production workers might be part of a fluctuating pool of undocumented immigrants and local residents who had a hard time holding steady work, which could slow down their search. The Manhattan police didn't seem particularly concerned about handing the case off - despite the relative poshness of their precinct, their caseloads were fairly full, and they weren't the DAs who needed to worry about prosecution rates. As far as they were concerned, at least according to a low growl around the coffeepot, at this stage in the game, if Queens bagged the bastard, Queens could keep him.

Reid, Rossi and Hotch stayed behind in the conference room, sifting through files and data in the hopes of making things easier on Prentiss and Morgan and having greater confidence that the first person they found would be the right one.

Coming back with a new cup of coffee, Reid noticed that a new bag of candy - this time, all one kind - had been placed on the conference room table, with a yellow post-it stuck to it.

"Nice work, Doctor." the note read, in block letters that managed to be still mostly illegible. Reid glanced back at the door, and saw Oliver at her desk, answering the phone. She smiled and ducked her head in acknowledgement when she saw him with the note. He flushed, oddly embarrassed at the gift, and looked away. When he glanced back, Oliver had the phone tucked between her shoulder and ear, and was rummaging through papers on her desk while beckoning to a junior officer.

He folded the yellow square and stuck it into a pocket of his baggy pants.

X-X-X-X-X

Things had not gone particularly well at the factory. Five men on the permanent staff, who had worked there for over a year, had experienced stressors 8 months to a year ago which might have triggered any of their deciding to take lives. One had subsequently died; two had solid alibis, and neither of the remaining two had any particular connection to twins. One was an only child. They were still under investigation, but they couldn't be held indefinitely - and they just didn't _feel_right.

Going through custodial staff and temp workers was almost nightmarishly slow. The factory kept only handwritten employment records, and despite Reid's speed-reading skills and memory, so far no connections had been found.

Garcia ran background checks and other correlation analyses on every name on every piece of paper as fast as her hands could type them in, and Hotch and Rossi were pounding the pavement now on a few of the weak hits that had some promise. Eight days had passed since the last bodies had been found, and the team was constantly on edge, unsure when to expect the next set if they hadn't caught the guy - but positive that one would arrive.

The 19th's officers were increasingly unhappy with the decision to keep only a light guard out at the library's dumpsters - no matter how confident the UnSub was, it strained credulity to think he'd dump the bodies there again, but police could be superstitious, and no one wanted to have egg on their face for failing to take what seemed to the public like an obvious step. Some officers were also complaining, audibly, that Queens should be covering the library if it were to be covered at all, because it was clearly their case now. Reid flinched when he heard this, inwardly grateful they remained in the Manhattan conference room.

Queens PD had set up a 24 hour watch on the factory - they had already done a pretty thorough search of the premises, and it was clear it hadn't been the kill site, but inventory control was somewhat lax, and no one could determine how many bags the UnSub had or how many he'd need. It was clear from what remained on the shelves that some boxes from later productions were missing, but it also became clear that no one much minded if a worker walked off with a little bit of the product.

These tended to be gloomy people, when they were at work, covered in grimy bits of vinyl byproduct.

Local news was full of speculation, and some reporter had called around to local businesses and hypothesized that an upswing in sick days resulted from there being "more twins than the City knew about". Everyone was weary, highly stressed, and frustrated.

X-X-X-X-X

At 3am, Reid accepted a ride back to his hotel in a squad car, because the officer volunteered to take him on a swing past the library and stake-out teams. He listened idly to the police radio hiss, crackle, and speak for several minutes, thinking further about victimology. He was exhausted. They all were.

He thought about Oliver, who had left not much earlier in the day. He'd seen her for much of the time he had been there, oddly, because he knew her shifts couldn't have kept her on duty the whole time without overtime pay, which he also knew captains were reluctant to approve. Perhaps she was there to keep an eye on the BAU, because she had brought them in?

A hiss of static and then, with a note of panic, "en-thirteen, officer down, _repeat_, officer down, do you copy?" Dispatch came through, verifying an ambulance and two backup cards. "Copy, Dispatch, and we confirm 10-85." Radio chatter continued about the event in progress, and Reid's ears took it in, without involving his attention very much, until he caught, "Oliver from the 1-9 says to tell the BAU team it's 'not a brother', copy'."

He swiveled towards the driver's seat, and felt his heart rate increase. He grabbed a belt radio, fumbled with the buttons while the driving officer stared. "Excuse me, this is Dr. Spencer Reid with the Behavioral Analysis Unit - you had a message from Detective Oliver?"

He didn't hear his voice echoing in syncopation - he could have just spoken directly through the car radio. The voice confirmed that Oliver herself was the officer down, with multiple gunshot wounds, and had been loaded into the ambulance insisting to all who would listen that the BAU get the message he'd heard correctly the first time.

He called Hotch and Rossi to pass on the message, and the team spent a few minutes puzzling out its meaning. They then broke apart, and Hotch and Morgan raced out to Queens, hopefully, to nail the killer. Reid, Rossi, and Prentiss reconvened in the conference room - the squad car had turned right around to bring him back.

He knew that the rest of them currently had to just sit and wait, but he was torn, wishing he could have asked about Oliver - would she be OK? Where was she being treated? What was she even doing up there? He shut his eyes briefly and saw the curve of her smile as she acknowledged keeping him supplied with adequate sugar. He'd felt embarrassed, like a little kid caught eating sweets. He hadn't even thanked her. How long had it been since she'd been shot? His own internal clock insisted on giving him the answer: too long. Too long, without news.

Three hours passed. Hotch and Morgan had found nothing at the location where Oliver had been shot, but Garcia had connected the house with the one suspect who was an only child, and she had tracked him through the GPS on his cellular phone until the two agents had connected with him. They went radio silent for the strike, but they'd brought three squad cards with them, and he'd stopped at an abandoned factory, so Reid was confident things would end well. Rossi sent him back to the hotel to rest until they debriefed, picking up his own phone as Reid left. "I think you need some rest, Reid," he said pointedly. Reid didn't comment that the other members of the team had been working the same hours, on the same case, as he had. It took him just thirteen minutes, door to door.

As he lay back stiffly on the hotel bed, his phone rang.

"Go," said Garcia into his ear.

"What?" Reid protested, knowing slightly before he said it that, once again, Garcia had figured him out.

"Listen, Boy Genius. Hotch and Morgan are out there, taking down the Big Baddy, so you can't be more helpful on this one just now. Rossi said he sent you to the hotel, but I know that you want to go see how the lovely lady law enforcer is doing. Although you really should be sleeping. Go."

He opened his mouth again. "The address is on your phone." There was a sound he didn't understand, and then a ringtone. "I, uh." he spoke into the empty room.

A minute and a half later, he was checking the rearview mirror on a rental car, on his way to Elmhurst Hospital Center.


	4. Healing

Having the badge came in handy, enabling him to pass through hospital security and nursing desks quickly, and then he was there, looking down at her still form, covered with a thin blanket, eyes closed, breathing gently. He hadn't stopped to ask anyone how bad it was, how she was. He was surprised that they were alone; he'd expected her colleagues to be in the room. Or medical staff. His eyes took in the monitors, the curves of bandaging under the sheet, the IV drips, her pallor. One side of her face was bruised, lacerated and swollen - he assumed she must have struck the ground when she fell. He saw a plastic bag on the table, recognized police blues. And blood. He swallowed hard. He felt almost weak in the calves for some reason, and a twinge in the thigh from his own, old injury caused him to stumble slightly against the plastic chair next to her bed before he sat. He steadied it with a hand, and ran the other through his hair as he sat down. He exhaled deeply.

He knew from looking that she wasn't in great danger; the readouts looked reasonable, especially for someone who had just suffered violent trauma. He exhaled again. He felt his heart rate slow somewhat. Looking around, he saw a knot of officers through a glass-paned divider, huddled around a nurse to the west in the hallway. One of them caught his glance, nodded, and looked back into the group, resuming whatever discussion he had been having. He looked down again, and this time found his gaze locked into a pair of green eyes.

"Dr. Reid." It was a quiet salutation, raspy, and apparently said with some effort. He felt warmth flood his face - thankfully, he knew, invisible to her - and his body moved in response as though pulled by some central wire into itself.

"Hi. . . How are you feeling?" he asked. "I heard what happened - I mean, some of it."

She closed her eyes for more than a moment, then opened them and asked, "Did you get my message?"

His heart raced again, until he realized she meant about 'brothers'. "Oh, yes, yes we did. We got it. Hotch and Morgan are arresting Ward now - or, well, they went out a while ago. I haven't gotten an update, but it's reasonable to assume they will catch him. The Queens police set up a perimeter. . . " he trailed off.

The green eyes were masked by lids again. "If that's so, I guess I am doing alright," she said. She grimaced slightly, and her hand moved under the covers. "How long. . .?"

"I don't actually know," he said, feeling himself calm. Oddly, it was reassuring to be in this room with her, knowing neither of them had pressing business. Perhaps, he thought ruefully, I find it soothing that she's unlikely to leave - or ask me to - under the present circumstances. "I just got here myself."

"Yes," she said, smiling slightly, "I heard you hit the chair." Her hand emerged slowly, and she ran it through her hair, not before he had the opportunity to see extensive, dark bruising along the side of her arm. The sight made him swallow, hard, repressing the emotions he felt with a physical movement.

"It's been more than three hours since you called - you've had some surgery, to remove the bullets. . . . Is there anyone I can call for you?" he asked, grasping really for something to say.

"No." A long pause. "I know, earlier, Jameson was here with some of the guys. I don't remember much about it - still fuzzy. But they're good guys. I don't. . . there's no one else I need to call." He noticed, finally, as the hand came to rest, that it was bare of rings. "I - oof!"

Her her eyes slammed shut and her lips pursed as both hands flew to her face, disturbing the thin hospital blanket and more fully revealing the bandaging and tubing underneath. And the bruising. She shook briefly - he wasn't sure if she was sobbing, or shivering, or something else. He could see locks of golden hair sticking slightly to cleaned wounds near her hairline.

"What? What is it? Should I call a nurse?" He found that he was crouched over her, one arm reaching out towards her shoulder. He, whose physical response to pain or contact was always to pull into himself, whose habitual posture around strangers was somewhat bent, as though to disguise his height and retract his body from their touch - here he was, leaning, reaching towards Oliver. Again. And he didn't remember moving into this position. "No, sorry. . . " she trailed off, and shook her head once, twice, before leaning slightly further forward and to the side. "Just - unexpectedly painful to move." She grimaced again, and leaned back. He had been so concerned about some new emergency that he hadn't registered the touch, but now he felt again the coolness of her, the incredible softness of her skin as her arm in the short-sleeved hospital gown brushed him. "I know," Reid said. There was a long pause. "I was once shot in the leg, by a man named Patrick Meyers. It was superficial, I mean, I wasn't in danger, but it was very painful." Oliver opened her eyes and looked at him. They were silent again for a long moment. Reid was too flustered to notice Oliver's eyes glistening more than usual following his statement or to consider what that might mean.

"Do you remember what happened? Can you think back?" he asked, struggling to guise his concern in BAU protocol. Morgan was usually the best at cognitive interviews, but Reid was here, and he knew the principles. He needed something to say. He wasn't ready to leave yet.

"Can you tell me why you were out there?" Oliver had called for backup at a house belonging to Sam and Patricia Ward, in Queens, half a mile from the factory; two cars were on their way from the 115, and arrived only 17 minutes after the call to find her bleeding on the front porch, house empty.

"I live in Queens. I grew up there." Oliver said simply, eyes still closed. "I was thinking about the list of suspects you'd initially assembled, with a focus on men with siblings who were dead or in trouble or estranged - or really, in any kind of difficulty."

"But I remembered Ward, and for some reason, I kept coming back to him. And it wasn't until I was driving home last night that I-" a brief hiss, alleviating pain, "-that I figured out why."

Oliver had gone to school with Charles Ward, and on her drive, remembered him as a bully, a rough one. There had been some incident involving a pair of sisters on the playground, the details lost in murky childhood memories, but Ward had switched schools after that, at the "ripe old age of 11." Ward hadn't focused much on Oliver, herself a single child, until one day, in the second grade, she came to school intentionally dressed like another girl - they had read some book about twins, and were pretending hard to be a pair of twins. "I was always a bookish kid," she said in a tone hard to measure. Ward hassled the girls all that day in class, got sent to the principal's office twice, and even shoved one of them roughly onto the blacktop, "accidentally", while the older boys had been racing around playing a ball game. He left them alone after that - but they never dared to dress the same again. Certain of her suspicion, Oliver called for backup - but didn't wait for them to arrive to approach the house. "I just, after so long, I didn't want to lose him. I knew it was irrational. But I felt like I had to go, then."

As expected, she didn't recall most of the details of the moments immediately prior to her being shot. But she had encountered Ward, at his parents' house, and while at first she had mastery of the situation, someone had managed to knock her down from behind, and she woke up in the midst of a ferocious beating. "I used my best instincts to spare myself serious injury, but I couldn't. . . " she trailed off. Reid felt his mouth tighten in an unfamiliar expression: deep anger, almost ferocity. A tear trailed down her cheek, then another, and a third. His lips set in a thin line.

"I'm sorry," she said, "so sorry - I, it was just hard to remember, coming back all at once. I don't mean to fall apart at you. And I'm so - mad - at me. . . I was _stupid_" She leaned back from him, eyes still closed. She took a deep breath. He felt the anger mount as he watched the bandaging and IV rise and fall with it. He suddenly realized he'd been holding her hand - when had that happened? He felt awkward, and confused by all the strong emotions besieging him. Most of which made no sense. He withdrew his hand from hers and sat back in the chair. They stayed silent for a while again while she breathed, machines clicking and beeping gently in the background. He heard the slight buzz of fluorescent lighting. The gang of officers filed past, sticking their heads in to joke and express wishes to Oliver as they left. Her former partner, Jameson, even acknowledged Reid in his conversation. "You make sure she doesn't back out on us, OK?" A nurse made some notes in a chart, cast stern eyes at Reid, but smiled gently at Oliver when she asked for some water. Everyone, everywhere, seemed to like her. He caught the nurse outside the room for a more complete update. And then they were alone again.

"Dr. Reid, I," she began.

"It's OK," he said earnestly. "And you can call me Spencer." Oops. He hadn't meant to say that.

That earned him a small smile. "Dr. Spencer, then," she said with a deeper grin. The smile faded. Reid felt his own spirits sink slightly with it. Then he felt her hand over his - cool, soft, firm, and roughened with tape and tubing. It was an incredibly gentle touch, and he didn't know what it meant. He found he couldn't look at her, or at her directly, so he stared at the hand.

"Spencer. I appreciate your coming to see me. I sincerely didn't mean to cause trouble in the investigation - or to take up your time" Oddly, he felt that he was the one being reassured. He had come to see how Oliver was, and as she lay here, beaten and shot, she was apologizing to him. He swallowed, and she let her hand relax, brushing his own as it slid, his heart quickening at the contact.

"I think what you told me could be useful." Inwardly, he knew this wasn't what he wanted to say. But he didn't know how to say what he wanted to say. He'd never been very good at talking about things unrelated to his job or his academic interests. Really, he had no experience telling someone he didn't know that he cared for them - he didn't know if he could, or even should. It was hard enough telling those he knew - his mother, JJ, Gideon. He never found the courage to say so directly, as much as he wished others would be clear with him. Especially in this situation. He couldn't honestly even say that he did care for Oliver - he barely knew her. He just knew, suddenly, that he thought he would like to.

As he thought, her body shivered, shaking his hand. "Here, are you cold?" he asked, taking off his jacket, and placing it gently over her. "Hypothermia is a common response to trauma, often as a result of decreased heat production due to loss of motor activity. I'll see if they can get you another blanket."

"Indeed. Thank you. Again." she said. As he was passing through the door frame, he glanced backward. She looked so exposed there, small under his jacket and all the bandaging. When he had come back, feeling pride at obtaining the second blanket, he started to explain that the nursing staff had been somewhat combative - but when he looked up, she appeared to be asleep. "Detective Oliver?" he whispered. She didn't move. A quick glance at the monitors reassured him again that she didn't have worrisome signs, and he stopped himself from trying to wake her, to soothe an inner voice anxiously complaining that maybe she had some undiscovered injury, that she had slipped into unconsciousness. The odds of that were less than 0.73%, based on the types of injuries she had sustained and the tests that had been done. He gently unfolded the blanket and covered her with it before slipping out the door and back to his rental car.

It wasn't until he'd gotten home that night that he realized he'd left his jacket.

X-X-X-X-X

It was, indeed, all over. Hotch and Morgan had apprehended Ward, and Morgan had physically tackled the murderer just about the time Reid caught the eye of the officers in the hallway. Ward now sat waiting for trial. He was an interesting criminal, and the crimes were unusual, giving plenty of potential new information for Rossi's books, VICAP and others. He'd already assaulted two men in prison, two large African-American men who looked similar to one another and had adopted matching tattoos. He was being segregated from the general population. Yet Reid found it hard to focus on the process.

The team was moving on. JJ was already reviewing files for the next case, but hadn't selected a new one on the day following the shooting. They planned to board the jet that evening, and so the agents spent half a day unwinding in the city. Hotch was a good leader, and understood that the team needed a little recouperation - he essentially ordered them to relax when they convened in the conference room that morning. Morgan was out somewhere, JJ had gone shopping for Henry, Rossi was visiting "an old friend." And Reid found himself driving back to Queens - to pick up his jacket, as he'd explained to a curious Rossi, whom he'd offered a lift. Rossi had probed at him, gently, asking Reid pointed questions about whether he planned to explore museums, or libraries, or talk to local academics. He wasn't sure what Rossi thought he knew, but he was relieved when the bearded face and the growing grin got out of his car and left him in peace.

Oliver appeared better today. She'd been relieved of her IVs, and, he learned, given two weeks to heal. She explained with evident relief, and embarrassment, that IAB wasn't concerned about her not waiting for backup - those sorts of things weren't too strictly scrutinized in cases where all ended well, apparently. And officers were more likely to be lauded for bravery than punished for it. She took fewer pauses between her sentences today, and those lovely eyes were open for most of them. All in all, Reid was relieved at her aspect. He'd known that she was very likely to survive, he told himself. But he also knew that he repeated these sorts of things to himself in reassurance, just like he occasionally reviewed the statistics on schizophrenia. That didn't mean he was never irrationally scared. And, the sight of her bruising still made him irrationally angry. As she bent sideways to retrieve his jacket, the blankets slipped off her feet, and he was shocked at the state of her soles. Ward had apparently known about the pain - and lethality - of beating the soles of someone's feet. When she reached back up to hand him the jacket, the stricken look on his face made her eyes widen, and she dropped it to the bed. He waived her questions away, accepted the jacket, and distractedly chattered at length about hypotheses concerning Ward.

The time passed quickly for Reid. He greatly wanted to keep talking, or just to be there, with her, for as long as he could - surprised at how quickly the intensity of his feelings towards this woman had grown. What was he thinking, he asked himself again. He paused for breath. Oliver made a deft segue into some of her own cases, and he listened to her talk, watching the expressions passing over her face, taking in her unusual language, only half-listening to the details of her police experience. He stayed at her side for ninety minutes. But eventually, he noticed the extreme weariness that still haunted her face, and he knew he had to urge her to rest. She lay back, seemingly grateful, closing her eyes at last. But as he was rising from the chair, restraining himself mightily from tucking blankets around her, or smoothing back the errant lock of hair from her face at the same time he imagined what that might feel like, he caught her eyes snapping open, and for the first time, he thought he saw fear flicker across her features.

"Are you leaving?"

"Yes, of course - I mean - you need to rest, and I don't want to keep you awake."

"No," she said, "I mean, the BAU, are you leaving the city?" He hadn't brought himself to say anything about it.

"Oh, uh, well, yes, Ward has been arrested and we're certain that NYPD can handle collecting the remainder of the evidence it needs for a strong conviction. We're scheduled to return this evening." He paused, and thought furiously for a few seconds about probabilities, and, hopelessly, his own inexperience. He heard Greenaway, in his memory - 'Have you ever asked anyone?' He couldn't believe that he was about to change that answer. But something about this woman - her quiet bravery, her clear intelligence, her interest in him, and just how he felt to be around her - pushed him past his usual anxieties, reticence and helplessness.

He took the risk. "But, I have had some personal leave pending. It's rare for us to come to the city. And, uh, so, I might be in New York a few days longer - there are some rare books in the public library collections I still can't access online, or obtain copies of - I mean, not ethically, anyway. I, so, uh, and there's a professor at John Jay I would like to talk to, so . . . if you're interested, I could keep tabs on the status of the evidence, and uh, give you an update?" The last bit sort of squeaked out.

He had surprised himself. Whatever he had intended to say, that hadn't been it. And what if he couldn't get a few days off? He knew JJ was selecting a new case - and the last time he'd tried to stay somewhere on his own, he'd come back to find Rossi and Morgan camped out in his hotel room. He wasn't sure he wanted to deal with that this time around. He wasn't sure, he admitted to himself, that he could handle it. He thought back to Rossi's grin. But he had said it.

"I would, yes. I would so appreciate it. If it doesn't inconvenience you terribly." There was a pause.

"Spencer," she said, opening her eyes again, "I pride myself on being pretty good with people. And so my perception is that you prefer information to be delivered clearly and directly - especially when it comes to personal interactions - even if that's hard to come by."

"Yes," he said, mildly confused.

"Well. And, I am unafraid to embarrass myself. Therefore, I am just going to say this, and luckily, you are out of the chair, so if you'd like to run for the door now, it's an easy sprint. And you never have to see me again." She paused.

"Actually, I am quite a fast runner," he volunteered, mindlessly, covering his anxiety with speech.

She laughed briefly. "Oh, good."

"Directly, then. I find you incredibly compelling. Personally, I mean. And I would very much like, now that we are not working a case together anymore, the opportunity to get to know you a little bit. So, if that doesn't start you running, please, come back tomorrow. And as long as you're here. I would very much like to see you."

He made a glottal noise, a thousand nervous responses colliding in his esophagus. He moved a step closer to her, close enough that she could have touched him if she reached out her hand. He swallowed, and tried again. "I. I would like that, very much."

He felt his own mouth broaden in a surprised smile, and, with a feeling of euphoric unreality, he was powerless to stop his hand from reaching out to gently move back the straggling hair from her face. He had never initiated physical contact like this before. She turned her head slightly towards his arm, as he did, and he felt the softness of her lips ever so gently brush the inside of his arm. His whole body felt electrified, or carbonated, and it took all his internal reserves not to start back from her. Nerve damage? He wondered, briefly. Her eyes stayed closed, and she made no affirmative move to kiss him, but she kept her face there, centimeters from his arm, her breath tickling. His fingertips rested on her skull. He moved his hand more fully through her hair, feeling the silken strands pass through his fingers. He tucked another lock slightly behind her ear, and then forced his hand to withdraw. He was certain she could hear his pulse pounding at his wrist.

He straightened, tousled his hair, and looked around at a loss for a moment. He needed a deep breath. "I'll. . . see you tomorrow, then."

"I can't wait," she said, eyes open and watching him as he left, something closer to her prior quick smile showing on her face.

He sat in the car, in the parking lot, for twenty three and a half minutes, just breathing. As he moved his jacket off his lap to place it in the passenger's seat, he caught some scent from it. He brought it to his nose. It smelled like her. He drove back, and parked, not waiting until he was back in his room to pick up the phone to ask for four days leave. He swallowed a gulp when he heard Hotch answer, through the door to his own room, as he passed by.


	5. You Never Ask

He steadied his breathing in the parking lot, less than twenty-four hours later, forcing himself to adopt a calm demeanor before unbuckling his belt and leaving the car. He'd brought two coffees with him.

Luckily, he had set them on the narrow counter at the nurse's station to make an unnecessary nervous adjustment to his clothing before he walked to Calla's room - so he didn't spill anything when the nurses told him she was gone.

He spluttered for a few seconds before throwing questions at them, which they answered in weary tones, seemingly used to this kind of behavior. It didn't occur to him to use his badge to find where she'd gone; in his mind, he had clearly passed the pretense of professional behavior. He left the coffees there, to their wry comments, and walked back to the car, bereft.

He didn't know how to find her, he realized. She wouldn't be back at work for two weeks, and although Hotch had given him four days without hesitation (despite whatever comment Rossi was making in the background), he wasn't sure what he would do with them now.

Dejectedly, he sat in his hotel room. At least Rossi and Morgan hadn't been there. A book on twinship lay open on the bed next to him, but he wasn't reading it. The hotel was quiet, or at least as quiet as a hotel in Manhattan could be at 10:29 am. He stared at a 48 degree angle out the window, lost in thought. He idly flipped a New York Public Library membership card back and forth between his fingers. And then, his phone rang.

"I can tell you're in your hotel, Reid," Garcia said. He imagined a fluffy orange pencil top waving frantically back and forth. In fact, he was pretty sure the rhythmic noise in the background was such an item making repeated contact with a computer screen.

"Garcia, isn't it illegal to use my cell phone's GPS to spy on me while I'm on personal leave?" he asked.

"How do you know I'm not just psychic?" she asked perkily. He sighed.

"There is currently no evidence to support the hypothesis that humans have the ability to 'read minds', Garcia, although. . . Does the team need me back? I haven't missed any calls from Hotch, I don't think. I mean, I can get to LaGuardia in about forty minutes. . . "

"No, Eighth Wonder, they don't. But I_am_wondering why you are in your hotel room."

"Garcia," he explained patiently, "I think that personal leave means I'm not accountable for my whereabouts. I mean, I could get stone drunk and it would be OK!" He realized that he wasn't entirely sure whether "stone drunk" was an accurate idiom.

"I have no problem with you getting stone drunk, my love. And I'm not asking if you are! It _is_ten o clock, though." Pause. "Aren't you curious to know where I thought you would be?"

Silence.

"68 Shore Road, in Queens."

"I. uh. Where is that?" he asked. He plucked at his shirtsleeve.

"Garcia knows all, and this particular expression of informational genius happens to be the address of one Calla N. Oliver, and I'm not telling you what the N is for." She paused.

"But in this case, it's not my superlative talent you have to thank, Reid. She knew my number, but not yours. She asked me to let you know where she was."

"She did?" he squeaked, remembering the feel of her breath on his wrist.

"She did, Captain Oblivious. We have a connection from way back, so I guess she figured her secret was safe with me. Sort of. In fact, who do you think told her what kind of chocolates you liked about a week ago?" He could hear Garcia's smile through the phone, especially now that she'd stopped drumming whatever feathered thing it was in close proximity to her headset. "Drive safely now. And don't drive stone drunk!"

"I will. I mean, I won't. Thanks, thanks Garcia." On his way out, he stopped again to pick up two more coffees. And his jacket. He forced himself to stay carefully within the speed limit as he drove.

When he arrived at the address given, he found himself somehow disappointed at the ordinariness of the place. It was a split-level house like any other. He didn't know what he had been expecting - but somehow, he felt it didn't quite fit what he thought he knew of Calla Oliver. N? He wondered, as he approached the stair.

Then he realized Garcia hadn't told him which part of the house she lived in, and he reached up nervously to scratch his neck. He looked around for names on mailboxes or slots, or doorbells, and had to crush down a rising sense of panic when he saw none. He started to walk around to another side of the building, hoping desperately he could figure it out, when a noise from inside drew him up short.

The white door swung open, and there she stood. He momentarily stopped breathing.

It was a cool spring day, but she was wearing a thin yellow shirt with no sleeves, and he could see the definition in her muscles. And the yellowing bruises. Her brown hair lay down about her shoulders - the only time he'd seen it this way, outside of the hospital room. She was bare footed, and she looked at him hesitantly, standing on the frame.

"Dr.- Spencer."

He thought tangentially that only his mother called him that, and then remembered that he had told her she could. And after that, he remembered that he didn't mind it at all, in fact, he liked the sound of the vowels, consonants, and sibilants passing through her larynx and past her lips and teeth. Looking at her standing there, leaning on the door, his breath caught slightly in his throat.

For one of the few times in his life, he came up with a socially clever response. "I've come to close your tab," he quipped, lifting the tray of coffees with a blatantly hopeful grin. Her face relaxed, and then broke into a grin of her own. "Wonderful," she said, "I hate to have someone in my debt. Would you like to come up?" He followed her limp up the stairs, and the door closed behind them.

Inside, the apartment was different than he'd expected from the exterior. Small, and spare, and scrupulously clean. The furniture was sparse, unremarkable; the walls were bare of art. And yet, it didn't feel empty or false.

An entire wall and part of the next were covered in bookshelves, and his eyes widened in appreciation as he took them all in. "Please, look," she gestured, correctly deducing the source of his reaction. "I'm going to heat these up a little." It was a good thing she'd encouraged him, because Reid had always been unable to exercise restraint in front of other people's bookshelves. Particularly ones filled with so many titles he knew and enjoyed - and, amazingly, a few he didn't.

Even with his talents, scanning through the titles took a few moments, and he tracked back swiftly to one. "Wait, you have a _signed_first edition of _Pebble in the Sky_?" he asked, squeaking a little in his eagerness.

There was a muffled thud in the tiny kitchen, and her voice drifted back. "Er. Yes, I do. Do you know it? You should feel free to take things down, if you like."

Reid then launched into a disquisition on Asimov while she puttered about, which continued as she brought the coffees out, this time in unusually patterned ceramic mugs. He burnt his tongue slightly as he sipped, wincing at the singe. They spoke easily of books, and science fiction, theories of criminality, and even mathematics, for some time, but never mentioned what had happened to her, or how he had found his way here, or the tension that lingered between them.

She encouraged him to speak about himself, and belatedly, he realized that he knew very little about her at all. He wasn't sure how to ask. So he kept going, discussing his quick trajectory through school, his youthful skirmishes, his first encounter with Gideon, cases at the BAU.

He was careful not to mention Garcia.

At times, they sat comfortably in silence for long moments, sipping at the coffee Oliver had since brewed and looking at the bookshelves. He noticed she didn't have a television. He noticed that, despite the initial spareness of the room, there were small objects placed throughout it which offered clues to her personality. One boxy object on a table near the entrance to the kitchen had initially seemed to be a radio of some kind, but he realized to his delight as he passed it on the way to a bookshelf that it was a communicator from the original Star Trek series. Judging by the wear, it might have been an actual prop used in the show. He didn't mention it, but they ended up talking about the show anyway.

Reid was enjoying himself, more than he had in quite some time, and certainly more than he ever had with a woman he didn't know - let alone a police officer. It wasn't that he wasn't nervous around her; he was. It was just that the kind of nervousness was different. For some reason, he wasn't as worried about committing some social _faux pas_ without realizing it.

And yet, as time passed, he felt some internal pressure, leaning leftwards, as though his heart were propelling him forwards, urging him to say something beyond the usual things he could speak about with the rare people who shared his interests and could discuss them intelligently - or learn intelligently. That's silly, he reminded himself, the heart isn't really on the left side of the chest. Besides, he was used to feelings going unspoken.

But then, he thought, the times he had spoken up about his feelings, he had always been glad he did. He started back to awareness as Oliver got up and opened a door to another room. He hadn't been paying attention, and didn't know, really, what was going on. They had both gotten up and sat down at different points in the day, obtaining coffee, using the bathroom, selecting books from the shelf. But this door hadn't been opened. He frantically searched his recollection for some clue, and couldn't find one. Looking past her, he saw that the room she had gone into was her bedroom. She had a large, comfortable bed, and the room was just as clean as the others. He saw a pale green spread, a single flower in a ceramic vase, a photograph. In this room, there were things on the walls. The light coming through the windows was very dim; he realized they had spent much of the day talking. It looked comfortable, inviting. He swallowed, and looked away.

She emerged shortly after, bearing some new book in hand, and he relaxed. Their heads leaned close together as they studied the same passage, (Oliver, studying the words, and Reid, who had read it and committed it to memory, studying the way her hair fell and her eyes squinted a little as she read) and remained closer than they had been when they looked up to discuss it.

Later on, Oliver paused before the shelves as she looked for a title. Reid eagerly chimed in that he knew where it was, because of his memory, and stumbled forward to help her retrieve it. She moved next to him as he pulled the book out, and he looked down to find her quite close, a pleased expression on her face as she prepared to leaf through the volume and show him something. He felt her breath on his arm as she bent towards the outstretched book, reminding him of his touch in the hospital room. And then her expression changed. They stared at each other for a charged moment.

"I called Penelope because - " she began, lifting an arm to brush her hair back. The bruises once again caught his attention, and he could see them extending to the wall of her chest through the arm hole of the thin shirt. A strand of hair caught on one of the lacerations on her face.

His throat tightened as he felt a fierce protectiveness. He reached an arm out without thinking, and then, catching himself, drew it back to the center of his body. "I'm sorry," he stammered, "but thought I should tell you - I, I'm angered by what Ward did to you. I'm very sorry you're in pain. And I am glad you called. Garcia. I mean, I'm glad I'm here to see you're OK. Uh," He looked at her, wide eyed, the book now dangling uselessly from his left hand. He couldn't say anything more.

"I'm about to be direct again," she said, trying to smile and failing. Once again, he saw a moment of fear. His mind was essentially blank, circling frantically in nonsensical thoughts. He wasn't used to this. He wasn't thinking of anything. Even when he had a gun pointed at him, he could still think. Even when he had had sex before, he could still think.

Before? he asked himself, swallowing.

He felt her take the book from him, and set it down. He stood there, unmoving, terrified of what was about to happen, terrified that it would and wouldn't, terrified that he would do something to ruin it.

And then she leaned in to kiss him, and after a moment of shock, he bent down to meet her lips. They were soft, but firm, and her arm tightened on his almost imperceptibly as the kiss deepened. He felt a tiny nibble at his lower lip, and was surprised at the rush of responsive warmth that flooded him. He felt the singe on his tongue as his lips were pushed against it.

Too soon, she pulled back gently, face still fearful, expectant, and looked at him with wide eyes. "I'm - " It seemed she couldn't finish her sentences either. Her face flushed. She released her hold on his arms, but he didn't draw back.

"Are you still a good runner?" She bit one side of her lip, nervously, a gesture he hadn't seen before. The sight of a sliver of tooth sent shivers down his spine, remembering the tiny nibble of her kiss, and he felt oddly reassured that she could be just as nervous about this as he was.

And, surprising himself for at least the third time that day, and who knew how many times during the whole course of events (27, of course, that was just colloquialism), he whispered hoarsely, "yes", and pressed himself into her as he kissed her again. He felt her shudder slightly as he took her in his arms, and he felt just as electrified by the touch of her skin as he had from the very beginning. Holding her tightly against him, feeling her soft lips move against his, feeling her breaths rise and fall, his fears fell away, and he found he could think again.

And what he found he was thinking first was, I'm glad I asked.


	6. Take A Break

Reid had been seeing Calla (Niamh, and if you tell someone I swear to God I will kill you and make it look like an accident) Oliver for exactly five months before she suggested he take another, actual vacation. They weren't available to each other as often as either would like; he went up to New York or she down to Virginia, scrupulously fair about taking turns, when they could, but neither of them had a traditionally regular schedule and often their days between cases didn't coincide. He found himself thinking of her when he was not at work and otherwise occupied; he found himself looking forward to the tiny chime Garcia had set only for her call which he knew signaled her dropping exhaustedly into bed, but willing herself to stay awake long enough to speak with him, to wish him goodnight, every night. Once, he found himself wondering how JJ and Will had done it, and swallowed hard at the seriousness of that thought.

In an interesting counterpoint, he was surprised to find that this. . . situation was far less distracting than he had worried it could be. Certainly, those brief four days in New York had been charged, and full, and he returned full of thoughts of Calla, longing for her - and trepidation about what the rest of the team would make of it. But outside of a knowing pat on the shoulder from Rossi that first Thursday morning, and some nonspecific ribbing from Morgan, the team had mostly stayed quiet. And after a few days, he found himself fully able to concentrate on the cases without falling back to thoughts of her smile, her touch, her strength. Following each subsequent parting, he was fully invested in his work, his interests without distracting When they were together, the preoccupation with one another returned - physically, to be sure, but in other ways just as strongly.

With Calla, he was learning to let himself simply be, the way he could with Gideon, to be direct and frank and clear and to ramble at length. She was direct and frank and clear with him, too. She didn't exhibit the same social awkwardness that he did - other people's reactions to her made that clear. And she seemed able to effortlessly adapt herself to what each person needed to be comfortable. And so, with Spencer, she behaved as though there were no unspoken rules of behavior.

As part of this, he just started asking her questions about herself, once he was confident that their connection could withstand whatever harm he did with his phrasing, and she answered in the same manner. So he learned about the "N," and amused himself by threatening to say the name when they were together in public. In small bits of stories, he learned how and why a shy, bookish girl from Queens got to grow up and achieve the rank of Detective at a young age without giving up her books and her literary diction and intense empathy. He learned that she liked to sing in the shower, atonally, that she never had exact change, and that while he often provoked her to laughter, she never laughed _at _him. She was always willing to explain the joke. "You delight me, Spencer," she said one day, gazing up at him from around an ice cream cone. He ducked his head shyly, not sure what to say at the compliment, and inordinately pleased that he could believe it to be true.

Late one morning, after an unusual stretch of three days together, she rolled over in bed next to him to find him, as always, awake and thinking but unwilling to leave her side until she woke. She nestled her head into his shoulder, and traced a long finger in complex whorls on his chest. Like fingerprints, he mused.

He looked at her, appreciating not only her self - her personality - but also her solid physicality; Calla took pride in being strong, not only because her job demanded it. She ran regularly, even on days off, and she had been insisting he join her when they were together, to his outward chagrin and complaints. Secretly, he was pleased - it felt good to run with her, even though he joined her only halfway through her circuit. The two of them would finish up, and Spencer would start to strip off his damp clothes, huffing and panting, while Calla dropped to the ground to complete a round of strength exercises, ribbing him as he headed for the shower. He was proud of himself when Morgan commented in surprise that he was keeping up better, the last time the team had to run somewhere. He loved her body, and the pride she took in it. As he caressed her arm, he thought, too, that he was glad she wasn't afraid to make use of that strength to insist on pleasuring him. His eyes widened slightly at the thought and he found her staring at him with a knowing grin. "I know what you're thinking," she said.

"You may have a good degree of confidence," he admitted, "but you can never really _know _what I'm thinking, even if I tell you."

She waved the conversation point aside, and continued. "You're thinking, it's time you took some more personal leave, and you should take it in seventeen days, when one Detective Oliver of New York's 19th precinct has required leave scheduled." Surprised, Reid frowned slightly. It was true that his accrued leave was significant - he so rarely took any, that he always "lost" paid vacation days at the end of the year. He was nervous, however, about what social signals he might be missing here. Calla had never asked him something without explaining what she expected, so he had no reason to believe he was missing anything. And yet, he felt sure he somehow was. This . . . seemed more serious.

"What is it?" Calla asked, pausing her finger drawings and mirroring his frown. "I'm not asking to bear your children - I'm just asking you to take some vacation with me. I think you can trust me when I say I know you'll have a good time." He swallowed at the thought of a pregnant Calla, although he knew she had been reaching for absurdity. Especially because he couldn't say the thought was without appeal. He thought, briefly, of Henry. And Jack. Heart hammering slightly, Reid stumbled into an apology, and assured her he did. Trust her. And he would take the leave. But he remained inexplicably nervous about it. He wasn't sure he could ask anyone for advice - besides Garcia (and Rossi?), no one knew about Oliver, and he was confident that none of them knew he spent half of his free weekends exploring New York at her side. He didn't want to bring it up now. And he wasn't sure what to expect from Garcia, except that it probably wouldn't be as comforting as he hoped. And it might, in fact, get back to Calla that he'd asked. And he felt unreasonably scared to ask Calla herself. Reid felt as though he'd gotten himself into something he didn't understand.

He made mistakes over the next seventeen days - not important ones, but mistakes nonetheless. He barked at a local cop on a case. He spilled coffee on Prentiss' files, and then hid in the bathroom for minutes when she snapped at him. And and the end of it all, he drove to New York, suitcase in hand, with sweaty palms and a worried frown.

But she was right, he needn't have worried. She didn't spring anything on him, or behave any differently. And he had left the planning in her hands, so most of the adventures were a surprise - and they were all good surprises. It certainly wasn't traditionally romantic, he knew. People might think them silly. But he so thoroughly enjoyed the reveal of the first surprise stop on their vacation, a Star Trek convention, that he felt ashamed of himself for being anxious. When he had seen Oliver step out of her room in that tiny red uniform dress with the slit up the thigh, standing there in those boots, his usual strong attraction to her connected with some buried adolescent lust, and he felt, amazedly, that this woman could drive him mad in more ways than he knew there were. And he had read a lot about human sexuality.

"I think Penelope bought this deliberately too short," she complained, tugging at the lower hem, exposing the curve of her thigh as she bent. "This is indecent!"

"Actually, as you well know, public decency laws in Queens aren't violated unless, in the case of a female offender -ow" he flung up his hands to ward off some projectile. She had unfortunately precise aim. When he looked up, she was holding what appeared to be a genuine prop phaser from the Original Series, pointed at the middle of his forehead. "Quiet, you," she ordered. He threw his hands up in mock surrender, and she walked closer, swaying her hips suggestively. He felt his body anticipate hers as she sat on his lap, her boots propped against the couch. They were half an hour late to the convention, but they didn't mind.

They spent the ten days having odd adventures, returning between times to her apartment. There was a half-day exhibit on local bat colonies, followed by a walk through caves where they lived. There was a discussion hosted by one of the NYU graduate programs with Stephen Hawking. There was a whole day spent in her apartment, which was quickly becoming Reid's second favorite place to be, Calla cooking and making strong coffee, the two of them curled in bed watching old science fiction films. He supposed he might see his way to dating this woman just for the coffee she made.

On the last night of their adventures, Calla had insisted on taking Reid out to a fancy dinner. She prized excellent food, and cooked very well herself - his diet was always somewhat violently expanded in her company. She often insisted on dragging him out to some new restaurant, from dive to three-star, in pursuit of a great meal. He didn't think she knew the words "energy bar." At least not in combination. And despite his occasional reluctance to have to go somewhere _else_ for nutrition, he always found himself pleased with the results. (Well, except that Ethiopian place.) But this meal, she said, was about more than just the cuisine.

"I know it sounds silly, Spencer, but I'd like to for both of us to dress elegantly and go out to dinner. A formal, possibly boring, traditional date. Even if you feel you're play-acting a bit. I - well, I'll explain later, but it's important to me, to do this once. Humour me?" Of course he'd agreed.

She'd decided that they should arrive separately, and he came slightly early, seated at the table in a charcoal suit with tiny pinstripes. He plucked at the sleeve, slightly uncomfortable. He had no idea what Calla would be wearing. Garcia had insisted on taking him shopping for the occasion - which he hadn't realized she was even aware of - and claimed that he would get "a jacket that _fit,_ this time", her mouth set in an unusually grim line. The shoulders felt uncomfortably narrow. A pale green silk shirt showed underneath. He was pretty sure that was not a traditionally masculine color. He sighed, unsure whether he looked ridiculous. Somehow, Garcia's cooing wasn't reassuring on this point. He got a mental image of two feet of blue feathers sticking out of bright red hair, and a pair of yellow high heeled shoes, and winced..

At his feet was a tiny gift bag with another article of clothing, much smaller, lacier, and made entirely of silk. He had an advanced degree in engineering, but he still wasn't entirely sure how it was supposed to function as clothing. They had given one another books - and she had given him that phaser, which was indeed a real prop - but he had never given anyone anything like this. He'd spent a few days peeking at her clothing labels when he could, for size - and a few more days enduring horrifyingly embarrassing sessions with Garcia, explaining what he was and wasn't looking for, and getting redder by the moment as she waved lingerie at him for him to decide on. Once, she had barely secreted the most recent haul in a drawer before Morgan burst in. "Did I catch you two at something?" he smirked. Luckily, Garcia had had a ready retort. But Reid hadn't been able to stop himself from glancing in terror at the drawer. He had been sure he saw a tiny bit of red peeping out. On top of the silk and lace was a gift he had chosen all on his own - an intricate, unusual pendant on a chain.

He looked up to see an a stunning woman advancing across the restaurant, and his mouth fell open slightly. He dropped his sleeve. He realized he knew that walk. And then he realized she was coming to him. He stood, fumbling with the chair as he pushed it back, feeling everyone's eyes on Calla as she walked towards him.

He knew that he had seen this woman in every stage of dress and undress. He was used to her uniform, to the holey sweatpants and thin t-shirts she ran in, to feminine dresses that suprised him, the first time she'd worn one. He'd seen her in costumes and in bathrobes, and once, amusingly, in nothing but his favorite sweater. He found her lovely and desirable always. He tried hard, in fact, not to take her very loveliness for granted, to become accustomed to it and forget to see it, to be grateful for it. There were moments she would look up from reading to find him looking at her, just appreciating the aesthetics of her face. But just now, he wasn't sure he had succeeded entirely. Calla was breathtaking. Standing before him with an unusually shy smile, she was clothed in a shimmering grey dress that hugged her entire body. The dress parted suggestively at the side, and swirled around her ankles when she walked. Her golden hair was piled high on her head with ringlets it didn't naturally possess, and her green eyes smoldered and sparked from beneath whatever makeup she'd applied for the occasion. This apparition was the kind of woman he had only ever eyed in awe, almost beyond lust, not the kind he could throw cereal at or discuss engineering with.

"Is this seat taken?" she asked, with that adorably infuriating smirk she couldn't suppress when she knew she had him. He surprised her by silently moving to her side with a serious expression, and pulling the chair back for her to sit. When he pushed her gently towards the table, he bent down towards her ear. They both preferred public discretion, but some occasions merited a departure from the usual. "You look astonishing," he said into her ear. She looked up at him, and brushed his nose gently with her own. "I intended to. Spencer, so do you." He wasn't sure he could refocus on the meal, after that.

The meal was excellent, of course - Calla's good taste and good fortune with respect to dining had held, and the waitstaff cleared the last dishes from around them as they continued to talk animatedly. When a pause fell, she looked up at him and fixed her green eyes on his brown ones. "Shall we dance?" They'd passed through a small wooden dance floor to get to their table. Stringed instruments had been playing quietly through the evening. Three couples, two of them elderly, were swaying to the music already. "I, uh, I'm not very coordinated," he began apologetically. "Spencer Reid," she said sharply. Uh oh. She rarely used his full name. She got up from her seat with a tiny sigh, and walked over to him. He watched the skirt fold around her leg, and was grateful for the view, at least. Wait, could he see her _underwear_ through the slit in the side? He felt a gentle touch on his chin, as her finger lifted it up. "This is me. And you will have nothing to be embarrassed about. I promise."

And so Agent Dr. Spencer Reid of the BAU, with his three doctorates and a history of extreme social awkwardness, found himself dressed to the nines in clothes he hadn't chosen, holding this beautiful, glimmering, sensual woman close to his body, and conducting himself respectably on the tiny dance floor. When the band took a break, she leaned into him instead of pulling away, gazing into his eyes. "Do you know why I pushed you on this big, fancy dinner?" she asked.

"No," he admitted honestly, gazing back, in slight puzzlement. He felt the skin of her back under his hand. "But I enjoyed it."

She smiled, with some relief. "Because I wanted this," she said, tilting her head in the direction of the now mostly-empty tables.

"A dance?"

"No," she laughed. "I wanted everyone to see you in my arms. I wanted to make a silent proclamation that I was with you, that it was my bed you would share tonight. I guess," she hesitated. "I guess, I wanted to brag." She looked up at him, expectantly, biting the side of her lip.

The band resumed playing, although the last diners were paying, half the tables had been unclothed, and Calla and Reid were the only two left on the dance floor.

"If anyone deserves to brag," he began, his voice slightly trembling and full of his particular brand of honesty, "I think it's really me." And, under the gentle smile of the envious cellist, he bent her backwards slightly and, throwing public discretion to the winds, kissed her for a full bar. 


	7. Moving On

Garcia, being Garcia, couldn't keep silent for all that long, and the rest of the team found out about Oliver when they had been together for 5.3 months. Morgan had caught Garcia looking at a photo of the two of them from that formal dinner, and whistled at Oliver's looks before bending closer, and stabbing his finger at the screen. "Wait, is that _Reid? _And isn't that, that's _Detective Oliver_? From the Ward case!" Garcia swore that Morgan had come close to squeaking himself. Reid spent a day blushing and stammering furiously, and waving his hands more frantically than usual. But after a week or so, the ribbing didn't bother him, and he found himself opening up slightly to his colleagues, able to respond with a phrase or two when they discussed their weekends, relieved he could be honest and not guarded. Calla came up in conversation once in a while, but not really more so than Kevin Lynch or opaque references to Morgan's debauchery. Once, she came to the station to meet him, when she had come on a weekend off, and carried off re-introducing herself to the team with humour and grace. She hadn't even minded Morgan's commentary about her fancy dress.

And Reid felt, oddly, that being with Calla, he felt belonged with the team more than ever.

He knew that the team respected him, and even liked him. He was always confident in his own intelligence - it would be foolish not to be - and he trusted his own judgement on a case. He had few self-doubts when it came to his job, or even, really how he lived his life. He didn't take any of that lightly. But he also knew they liked him as someone different, someone not quite sharing the things the rest of them shared together. But that didn't mean he wasn't aware of his difference. The "Dr. Reid" introduction, as compared with "Special Agent," highlighted his respective youth each time they were on a new case and set him descriptively apart from the team. He agreed with the decision to introduce him that way, but he was still conscious of the consequences. As he found himself growing more comfortable, and perceiving less awkwardness, as he interacted with them, he realized that this perception of himself as younger and different had lingered, and was internal as well. Despite his skill and his confidence in it, he had always felt, at times, like something of a boy around the rest of the BAU. With Calla, he had always felt like a man. She drew out more of the strength inside him that had always been there, encouraged more of the interpersonal boldness he struggled with. She made him feel confident of his adulthood and more comfortable expressing it. And it was this realization that moved him to say to her, one rainy morning when she blinked open her lovely sleepy eyes at him, "I'd like - I'd like you to think about living with me. I mean, together." It was really the first big risk he'd taken in a relationship. He supposed he'd started thinking this way when her request for a vacation threw him into a tizzy of anxiety.

She rose sharply and leaned on an elbow, the blanket sliding down one arm. She stared at him. "What?"

"I, we, we care for each other. We talk every day. I spend half of my free time here, and you spend half of yours in Virginia - and we spend most of ours, collectively, together. I mean, it would just be more efficient if we lived in the same place. It's unreasonable to waste all of that gas. And" -pause- "I'd like to know that when I come home, you might be there. I mean, not just by phone." He paused, and closed his mouth. That hadn't been as precise as he'd hoped. He didn't mean to sound so forceful, either - he'd meant to ask her what she thought about it, and found himself insisting on what he wanted, supporting his arguments, before he'd heard her reaction.

Her eyes grew a little wet - she hadn't yet blinked. She pushed her hair back from her forehead. She was clearly thinking.

"Spencer, are you asking me to move to Virginia?"

He swallowed. "Well. Uh, yes. With me," he clarified, helpfully.

Her gaze darkened, and he saw genuine anger cross her features. He was a little shocked. They had had disagreements, but she had only once before been seriously angry with him - when he was on a case and had forgotten to call, and she'd heard about local injuries on the news. She'd been worried for him, and when he finally did call, the coldness in her voice when she answered smote him. But what hurt worse then was the unexpected gush of tears once she knew for certain that he was OK. Now, he wasn't sure exactly why she was mad. But it scared him a little.

"You can't - I mean, one doesn't just give up the rank of Detective here, at this age, at this stage in my career, to - for what?"

For _me_, he thought, but didn't say it.

His face showed hurt, and not a little panic. He had always assumed she felt similarly strongly towards him, especially as she was the more expressive of the two of them. "I'm not, I'm not asking you to give it up," he began, and then he realized this was untrue. He tried again. "I mean, well, OK, I am. But I'm not asking you to move tomorrow, or without thought or planning. I'm not, it's not like I'm asking you, I wouldn't, to stop having a career. I know that you can continue to build and develop your career regardless of a geographic move. In fact, changing jobs at a reasonable pace is often better for a person's overall lifetime income. Besides," he continued, failing to think through the possible consequences before he spoke, "you don't really - you don't fit in, there." He meant the 19th precinct, with cops who tended to be hardworking parents or hard drinking loners. She got along well with most of her colleagues, but it wasn't at all like what he had at the BAU. It wasn't like family. And she had spoken about this to him, about feeling lonely there sometimes, different.

Her face became angry again. Reid dropped his gaze. He'd said the wrong thing. Again. Internally, he knew what should come next. And he knew, despite their history together, he couldn't be wrong. _Oh, and_ you_ fit in, Spencer? _ she would snap. _You belong, at the FBI? You _are _one of them? You fit in with Morgan, his ease with women, his fierce loyalty and determination to speak his mind? You belong with Prentiss and her calm confidence in everything she says? Or Penelope, with her joy and light and constant humour? Tell me, Spencer, exactly how well you fit in, sharing all of their jokes, none of which are ever at your differences._ _If anyone should leave for not fitting in, it's you._ He stared at the blanket. He didn't notice a tear fall from his eye.

"Spencer." She wasn't yelling, he thought hopefully. But he still couldn't look up. He had blundered so badly. How had he said this all so wrong?

"Spencer." More insistently.

There was motion, and he found himself staring into her eyes, as she bent her neck so that her head was in his field of view. The anger was gone from her face, and she looked - she looked almost sad. A look of incredible compassion came across her face - the same look he'd seen when she spoke to victims' families, or victims themselves. He pressed her free hand to his face, fiercely. He tugged too hard, and she wobbled on her supporting arm.

"Spencer, I reacted angrily because I didn't think you understood what you were asking me to give up. I've worked so hard, I've fought so hard, for what I have. I have built my career to date with a specific direction in mind. And so, to contemplate changing that - for a direction I don't know, I haven't considered - it's a little scary. And you're right, maybe, at the 1-9, I do not, not really. I'm sorry I snapped at you - I'm not angry. It is so much to ask me to give up. But also I know I can't ask you to give up so much more. I know how much the BAU means to you. I know that you belong there." His heart pounded. Another tear fell. It splashed on her cheek. Had he ended it? He wondered. Had he ruined everything? Was this the last time he would see Calla Oliver? She brushed his face dry with cool fingers.

"And it's not just my career - although, there's no "just" about it. I like it here. This place, it's my space. I've made this apartment my home, truly, and I've never, ever thought about walking away from it."

You wouldn't be walking away, he thought. Not from everything. You'd be walking to something. And then - desperately continuing the idiom - and then we could walk together.

"We haven't been together even a year, yet," she continued, pausing to let him interject the actual amount of elapsed time.

He thought back to the last time he'd corrected her estimate. "Spencer, stop counting!" she'd complained, punching him in the shoulder. It hurt a little. "Dating me is not a marathon - or a prison sentence, and you get no time off for bad behavior!" He said nothing, spirits sinking with each passing moment. It was too soon, he thought. He shouldn't have asked. Not yet. And now she would leave him - the way everyone did, once he said what he really felt. Another tear fell.

"But, oh, please, don't look so hurt. Please," she beseeched. "Please, I'm not going to leave you. Is that what you fear? I'm not going to walk away from this. It's been a short time, in adult-years, it's true." A small smile. Calla could always smile, even at the most painful times. "I'm so sorry, I didn't think - I didn't realize you would think that's what I was saying. Everything I've worked for, everything I have - it would be hard, but I could - and I would - walk away from it today if that was the only way I could be with you."

Blinking away more tears, of gratitude this time, Reid spoke up, his voice cracking. "I wasn't, I wasn't giving you an ultimatum. This came out all wrong." A shaky exhalation. "I wasn't threatening to leave you. I don't want to leave you. I wasn't, didn't, insisting - I wanted to ask you." A pause. "Calla, I love you." He hadn't said it before, not out loud to her. "And, and somehow, it's not enough for me anymore, this back and forth."

"Spencer, I know. I know you do. And I love you." She _had_ said it before. But that didn't change how he felt each time he heard it.

"And don't think I don't want to see more of you, either. So, okay. Well, I think I could probably start thinking, and looking at my options. It would be very different for us both, Spencer, and it's impossible to predict how the adjustment will go. I hadn't considered where my career might go outside of New York. I've never - I've never done this before. But I think - I believe - it could be. . . wonderful." Spent, he sank back against the pillows, and stared at the ceiling. He wasn't going to lose her. He wasn't going to lose her. In fact, amazingly, like a spoiled child, he was going to get everything he wanted - Calla, his place at the BAU. Good coffee.

Her now mischievous face popped back into his field of vision as she settled her strong body on top of his and wagged a finger at him. "On one condition, though."

"What?" he said, eyes widening, too exhausted to be nervous.

She brought her face within kissing distance, unable to suppress a grin. "I get to make the coffee."

"Please," he groaned, playfully pushing her back onto her side of the bed, "that was going to be _my _condition!" 


	8. Domestic Interlude

**A/N : I promise the next few chapters after this one will focus more on the new case, and somewhat less on the relationship. So bear with me through the sappy domestic interlude!**

It had been more than four months since their emotional conversation about moving to Virginia.

Calla spent most of her free time now in Virginia, with him. It was the most efficient thing to do, as she would be looking for work here, but Reid suspected that it could feel unfair, when they had worked so hard to share the travel before. He'd tried to insist on paying for her travel expenses, but she would only accept on the condition he beat her at arm wrestling which, so far, he hadn't been able to bring himself to do. She was far too pleased at her unbroken record of victories for him to take it away for this purpose.

She had been working hard to explore her options in Virginia and DC. She had had thirteen official job interviews, and had gone on many more "informational interviews" and networking meetings. She had received two offers so far, both of which she had turned down.

He hadn't disagreed with her decision - in fact, he'd been surprised she had bothered to consider one of them. He supported her decisions about her job, whatever they were. She was here for two and a half days, having spent half of Friday on another interview which, ultimately, didn't sound very promising.

Reid knew that change took time, especially with regards to employment: most people searching for jobs reported looking for an average of 1.12 years before actually taking on a new one – and he supposed he should be relieved that they would have time to accustom themselves to the idea before acting on it. But what he actually felt was impatience. And he was afraid he was occasionally letting it show.

He had said, yesterday, "I'm sorry these options aren't what you were hoping for," intending to express sympathy for what he knew could be a frustrating process.

She'd responded, "Well, maybe I should just resign myself to working at the Starbucks near Quantico.. At least then I'd have a known positive track record to build from." She wasn't snapping at him, he knew, but she sounded bitter. He hadn't realized the degree of stress she was feeling about it.

He looked over at her sleeping form. Her hair was tousled on the pillow, and she lay half-curled with her arm underneath her head in a way that was guaranteed to produce parasthesia when she moved it. She always managed to work her head off the pillow when she slept. He watched the shadows cast by moving branches outside the apartment building ebb and flow across her shoulder and neck.

Spencer almost always waited patiently for her to wake up; he'd taken to keeping reading material near the bed when she stayed with him, so he could accomplish things while he waited without disturbing her. He knew the statistics on sleep patterns, especially for people with irregular schedules. But this morning, maybe provoked by last night's expression, he couldn't prevent himself from leaning over and kissing her beneath the jaw. She woke and sat up to look at him.

"Good morning," he said, in a voice slightly hoarse from disuse.

"Ow," she complained, shaking the arm she'd been sleeping on. He watched, amused, as the shaking caused the blankets to fall from her upper body. "Brr," she said, predictably. Then, "Good morning, G-Man of mine. How are you?"

"I could use some coffee, actually."

"It's a one-track mind you have, Spencer Reid." She shoved him gently, and started to get out of bed.

"Where are you going with my blanket?" he complained. She'd wrapped the foot of the blanket around herself and was walking with it out of the bedroom, leaving him with only the sheet as she went. Much of the thick quilt trailed along the ground.

"Your apartment is freezing," she didn't explain, and kept walking.

"You know, you'd be warmer if you were wearing clothes," he pointed out.

She craned her neck back around the doorframe. "It would be less efficient for me to spend the energy putting my clothes back on, than to use energy stealing your blanket, seeing as after I make this coffee, I am getting right back into bed next to you. And I don't like to wear clothes in bed. Even at 5:30 in the morning."

"Well," he said, smiling, "while I disagree with your theories on conservation of body heat, I suppose I can't complain."

"Trust me, things will go better for you if you don't. Also, I am perfectly capable of weaponizing coffee."

A few minutes later she returned, carrying the large French press she'd insisted on buying for his place, full of hot coffee.

In her other hand, she held two travel thermoses, as Reid didn't have much in the way of traditional cups, and a handful of sugar packets. These she set down next to him. She burrowed back into bed, making a show of generously returning a portion of the blanket to him.

They lay companionably next to one another for a while, he reading through his notes on the Salinas case. It had initially taken him a while to get used to reading in bed – particularly reading work related materials. But he had come to enjoy being so close to her while still able to focus on his work. He had always spent time following each case creating a file for himself, expanding the details beyond the official record, keeping notes about process, mistaken assumptions he'd had, insights. He looked up, thinking, pressing a finger to his lips, and was distracted by the sight of Calla next to him, staring at her coffee.

She detected his observation and let out a small puff of laughter. "Sorry, Spencer. I'm just a little frustrated with this search for a new job. It's making me feel like I'm in limbo. And I worry that I'm not as good an officer as I used to be, because of it. I don't want to go out as an officer 'with a whimper'. But, look, I didn't mean to distract you. What are you working on?"

"Oh, this is my case notes for this case we just finished. I can't really tell you much about it, while the investigation is still ongoing, but it reminded me I wanted to look into methods of travel that aren't commonly used." She raised an enquiring eyebrow, and he kept going.

"When I start to put together a geographical profile," he explained, "one thing I consider in terms of likely radii of movement is the types of transportation available. In some areas, cars are really the only option to get from one place to the next; in others, you have various forms of public transportation. People bike, walk, use ATVs. All of these have different impacts on the potential scope. But people travel in many ways, and I was thinking recently that I don't always account for them. That's because most of these are statistically unlikely; in America, you have very few people who actually use horses for travel, for example. They're usually just recreational. But there are some migrant communities which do use horses or pack animals, and over surprising distances. I know that one has to focus initially on the most probable outcomes. But sometimes, I think, it can be helpful to take those unlikely factors into account, and I'd like, I'd like-" he stumbled a bit as he became more eager about his theory, just as the cell phone on his bedside table rang.

"Hello?" He glanced at Calla. "Of course, I'll be right there."

"I have to go," Reid said - with a little regret, but no apology. They both accepted the rules.

"Do you mind if I stay through tomorrow anyway? Where will you be?"

"No, of course not. I'll be in kentucky. I'll call you."

"OK. I won't forget to lock up. Be safe." A pause. "Take that scarf with you."

"'Bye."

"'Bye."

As he shut the door in the hallway, he paused for a brief second, thinking about Calla sitting there in his bed, with her coffee and the sunshine pouring in. He smiled. There was something pleasant about the thought of her occupying his apartment even when he wasn't there. Then he shouldered his messenger bag, picked up his go bag, and headed for the elevator.


	9. Deep End

**A/N: I have director Michael Montel to thank for the selection of Corbin, based on his lovely play, Last Train to Nibroc. Also, a reviewer noted that I have Reid using complicated vocabulary – a deliberate character choice – so going forward, I will try to footnote science words with definitions. Thanks for any reviews and heads up, especially when they make the story easier and more fun to read!**

Reid was the fourth one on the jet. "And how is the lovely Ms. – _Detective_ – Oliver?" asked Morgan, a smirk on his face as Reid settled into a seat and adjusted his messenger bag.

"Uh, she's fine," Reid admitted, blushing but unable to repress a genuine smile. "Why are you asking about her?"

"Still Detective?" enquired Prentiss innocently, as she leaned forward and plucked the incriminating long blond hair off of Reid's lapel. She dangled it in front of him for a second. "You mean that woman isn't running the entire New York City Police Department yet?"

"She's sure running Reid," continued Morgan, grinning. He was clearly about to say something else, opening his mouth slightly, but he caught side of Hotch behind him, entering the plane at a fast clip with a stern look, and quickly sobered up. Reid, relieved, quickly looked down to see if there were any other blond hairs stuck to his clothing.

"Where's Rossi?" Hotch enquired.

"Right behind you," the man said, sitting in an unoccupied seat and running a hand through his hair. "We experienced profilers know enough not to leave for a case at this hour, on a weekend, without stopping for coffee." He took a sip from a paper cup.

Hotchner shot him an inscrutable look and began to outline the facts they had so far as the jet lifted off.

The BAU was headed to Corbin, Kentucky, a small town with under 10,000 people, in the southeastern part of the state. In the past three months, two women's bodies had been found in Laurel Lake. Neither had a left hand.

"While property crimes in Corbin tend to be higher than those in the surrounding areas, violent crimes are about average; in fact, Corbin only had two murders during the entire first decade of the twenty-first century." Reid offered this introductory statistic from his memory of a recent report on small towns and crime, correlated against general data for states in that region, with a perplexed frown wrinkling his forehead.

"However, there are generally anywhere from 2-9 reported rapes in Corbin each year – were the victims raped?"

"There was evidence of sexual assault, yes," said Hotch, "but no trace evidence was found on either body."

Each of the women had been in her early twenties, unmarried, and living apart from her parents, although one lived with a roommate. The other was engaged, but lived separately from her fiancé. They had both been petite brunettes, shorter than average and thin.

He had a type.

In a town the size of Corbin, almost everyone had some connections to one another, and the team knew it would be a challenge, with only two victims, to tease out which connections were salient and which weren't.

The two women worked in different jobs, at practically opposite ends of town – you had a secretary and a waitress – but they had gone to the same grade and high school, and they belonged to the same church.

Corbin was a quiet, small town with indifferently paved roads and one-story buildings. The sky was bright blue and spotted with clouds. Hotchner made the introductions as they walked into the local police station. It was, in fact, right across from the Economy Inn where the team would be staying.

Prentiss shot the place a grim look as they walked into the station; it certainly wasn't one of the nicer places the team had stayed in. However, it also wasn't one of the worst. Morgan picked up on her attitude and elbowed her in the side. "Top notch in-room dining", he said, gesturing at a shabby pizza place next door. She groaned and rolled her eyes.

The Corbin police Chief, Campbell, had graying hair and a stocky build, and seemed both grateful for the team's arrival and fiercely protective of his reputation. It's not that he couldn't handle it, he explained, but that he felt it would be useful to have the BAU around and the case could potentially offer them some interesting background information for their "serial killer studies, or what have you."

At the same time he said, it would help him to reassure the locals that they had the BAU on board. Hotchner reassured him that this was clearly Campbell's case, and the team was just here to assist and consult.

JJ thanked him for bringing the team on board and flattered his ego a bit by asking that he help her get in touch with the local media. She left with Campbell while the rest of the team settled into an awkwardly small corner with a corkboard and a few desks, to get what details they could out of some of the local officers.

The most recent body had been found late Friday night. Like the first one, it had been found when it bumped up against the shoreline and local residents taking a stroll had noticed the unusual silhouette and stopped to investigate. Laurel Lake was a protected area, and so the spaces around the lake were free of commercial development. It was a popular area for hiking, fishing, and camping – it also provided some of the town's power supply. It was only 9 miles from the police station.

"Can we be sure this guy's a local?" Rossi asked, grimacing at the corkboard in thought.

"I had Garcia cross check the M.O. against murders in Kentucky – she came up with several other murders and hand injuries, but nothing that matched this signature exactly," Hotch replied.

Reid asked that the search be extended into Tennessee, as the parkland which contained the lake extended into that state as well. Twenty-seven seconds later, the cheerful technical analyst was reporting one murder that fit the signature and victimology near Oneida, TN. But this one had happened more than a year ago.

"That's his first," decided Morgan. "That one is the key." Morgan and Prentiss were duly dispatched to Tennessee, to see what they could learn about the crime. The rest of the team would stay in Corbin for now; Hotch and Rossi went to interview family members while Reid began to fill the corkboard with map pins, photographs, and clippings from local news coverage of the discovery of the first body. He called Garcia to ask her for local coverage on the Tennessee case, too.

"Speak, and if you are lucky, your prayers shall be answered!"

"Garcia, I need you to pull up local news coverage from the first murder – the one in Oneida."

"Aw, Genius, you couldn't give me something more worthy of my talents? On the way to your phone as you speak!" A pause. "So, I heard from Morgan you had decorations on your shirt this morning – how are things going?"

"Thanks, Garcia," Reid said hastily, and hung up.

The victims were clearly connected by the location of the dump sites, but, as Morgan had noted initially, the crimes were very different across the state lines. The first victim was left in a shallow grave, quite near the edge of the park. She appeared to have been thrown there hastily, dirt barely scratched over her – she was easy to discover. In addition to missing her left hand, which had been removed with very little skill, she had suffered a strong blow to the skull, presumably from behind. The Scott County website, which had carried her obituary and the initial stories, mentioned that she left behind two parents and a brother – the other victims also had both parents living, but no siblings.

The two Kentucky victims had been killed with more care – each had been strangled. The degree of damage to the left wrist decreased – there was some post-mortem damage due to wildlife, which made it difficult to be certain, but Reid thought it likely that the UnSub was learning how to remove a hand a little more easily each time he did it, with cleaner, stronger cuts. The first victim did not show evidence of rape at all.

Several highways connected in the forest and park area, making it difficult to determine how the UnSub had entered and left the park. It wasn't clear, either, that he knew his way around, as his victims had all been found fairly quickly after their deaths and in places accessible by almost any visitor to the park. Reid noted that he had tended to stay on the east side of the park, at least, which might rule out one highway as his primary means of transportation.

He sat with the case files until the early evening, exchanging ideas with Hotch and Rossi as they came back into and out of the station, updating him (and Morgan and Prentiss, by phone) on their interviews with the two sets of family members. By nightfall, they didn't have very much more than they started with, except to note that in addition to attending the same church, the Kentucky victims were members of the same choir; one had had a dog, one had not.

The team retired wearily to the Economy Inn, where Rossi had a difficult time explaining to the clerk the sudden change in the number of rooms required: Morgan and Prentiss were staying the night in Tennessee. By the time Reid was able to set his notes down on a shabby table near the door, he was too tired to realize he hadn't eaten anything since the previous night's dinner with Calla following her interview. His phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Aww, Reid, were you looking for your Detective? I bet you were getting all ready to kiss her goodnight."

Reid straightened slightly in embarrassment, and resisted explaining that Calla had a special ring on his cell phone. He assumed (correctly) that revealing this piece of information would only subject him to further taunting.

"Morgan, can I help you with something?"

"You sure can, kid." Once again, Morgan was all business. "Garcia told me you'd requested news coverage on our local victim. Did her obituary mention what she did in her spare time?"

Reid squinted, mentally reviewing the texts. "No, they didn't. In fact, all three papers distributed in the area used essentially the same language, although the "Independent Herald" gave more detail about her family members and altered some of the descriptions. . . Why?"

"Well, it turns out that Sarah Nickerson had a side hobby her parents didn't know she was so invested in – dogs. She would go to breeding shows and apparently talk to local breeders as though she had a dog of her own. But she didn't – her mother was allergic to dogs and had always resisted Sarah's trying to find a solution." He paused. "The woman was pretty broken up about it, still."

"I guess some grief does not 'sob itself out in time'," Reid commented, quoting distractedly. "You know, one of our victims had a dog she regularly took for walks near the lake."

"What kind of dog?"

"Hang on, let me see – it doesn't say in the case file, but maybe there's a note somewhere. . . Boston terrier."

"That's the kind of dog Sarah Nickerson would pretend to have, at the shows."

"It's a reasonably common pet breed," Reid mused, "although it's more common here to have hounds or other hunting dogs – larger breeds."

"Go chase it down, then," Morgan said. "We'll take a look at terrier breeders again before we come back tomorrow. Garcia can cross check pet owners, stores, and breeder lists."

Reid walked back across to the station, only to find the door locked. He had to knock for a few seconds before the lone officer inside got up to see what the clamor was. He managed to pull a few bags of M&Ms out of the vending machine before he settled back down to work.


	10. Gone to the Dogs

**A/N: as requested, Reid scientific words now marked with an asterisk, definitions at the bottom of the page. Thanks for reading! Let me know if you think this is a believable BAU case? This chapter is a bit short, but hopefully, still compelling!**

Reid thoughtfully crunched some M&Ms as he reviewed the case files in front of him. The police station was very dark, except for a small circle of light over the BAU's area. His phone rang.

"What have you got, Garcia?"

"So, get this. It turns out your victim, Sarah Nickerson - "

"That's technically Morgan and Prentiss' victim."

"OK, well, _the_ victim, Sarah Nickerson, did indeed share transaction history with one of the women in Kentucky; I didn't catch the overlap the first time, because I had originally run only the two cards held by the women in their own names. But when Derek told me about this fantasy dog thing, I decided that if I were trying to hide something, I might not use my own credit cards - even if I, in this scenario, was _not_ a fantastically talented hacker. Or technical analyst."

"So whose card was she using?"

"Her brother's. Daniel Nickerson, 28, lives about 2 miles from Sarah and his parents. They had accounts at the same bank."

Sarah Nickerson and Amy Lynch had indeed shopped at the same place. (Or, to be technical about it, Daniel Nickerson and Amy Lynch had shopped at the same place - but Daniel had addressed the shipment to Sarah, and had later made an enquiry to his bank about the charge, which he dropped once he chased down the name and address on the package). Interestingly, the place they had shopped at was - a national online retailer of pet products. The website wasn't much help in narrowing down the suspect pool - it served more than 10,000 customers per day. Even narrowing down the customers to people who bought only items that could have been used for a medium sized dog, like a Boston Terrier, didn't help very much.

But what was Sarah shopping for? Neither she nor Daniel, unlike Amy Lynch, owned a dog.

Morgan and Prentiss volunteered to return to Daniel Nickerson's house the following morning, and the team decided they would collect in Tennessee - the potential significance of Sarah Nickerson as the first victim, as well as the mystery surrounding her pretense of dog ownership, compelled them to relocate. "Who buys chew toys for an imaginary dog?" asked Garcia. "Are you sure she wasn't the disturbed one?"

Reid and Hotchner would return to the house of Amy Lynch so that Reid could do his own review of her room, while Rossi followed up with the family of the third victim, Julie Romback, to see if she had any canine connections, and then they and JJ would drive down to Oneida.

At 1:00 am, Reid said goodnight to Hotchner, who had returned to the station with him, and walked across the street to the Economy Inn. As he shut the door he could hear Hotch on the phone with Garcia, asking her to expand some of her correlative searching. He had volunteered to stay later and help, but Hotchner had sent him to sleep.

Reid opened the creaky door to his room, and set his messenger bag on the chair. He realized he hadn't had anything to eat outside of M&Ms for much of the day, as his stomach chimed in with peristalsis*. As he undressed and got into bed, laying his cell phone on the table, he also realized that while he'd been engrossed in the new developments, he'd missed the tiny chime of his phone that signalled Calla calling to wish him good night. He paused for a moment, considering calling her back, and then decided it was too late at night. He still felt oddly uncomfortable with the text message for other than transactional communications. So he sighed and settled back into his flat pillow, waiting for night to pass.

Last night, a cross check against each victim's wider circle of friends and acquaintances, gleaned from interviews with family members, people who showed up at the police station, and significant phone call or credit card activities revealed a few more connections between Lynch and Nickerson, but the third victim, Julie, was still a loner as far as the other two were concerned.

As Reid volunteered, people who had pets tended to know other people who had pets, just like people who had children tended to know other parents, because they tended to spend their recreational time in similar ways and at similar places. So far, Julie Romback had no dog and no imaginary dog, either.

Hotchner prepared the team to give a preliminary profile in Corbin before they left for Tennessee, but the group knew they were leaving Campbell and his men with a large enough pool of suspects that, unless the UnSub was engaging in very erratic behavior, the profile might not lead to anything until they could narrow the pool down more - in either state.

They knew the UnSub was likely to be male, in his mid to late twenties, based on the age of the victims, and most likely white, based not only on their races, but also on the demographics of the areas in which they had lived. Strangulation following sexual assault could point to an anger retalitation offender, taking revenge for imagined insults and injuries - although the first victim had not been raped. These were all strong probabilities based on the evidence they had and statistical history.

Before they left, JJ and Hotch reassured Chief Campbell they would share any leads with him and they would endeavor to facilitate cooperation between the two states. Campbell crossed his arms over his potbelly as they left, frowning at them. It was clear he thought he had seen the last of the BAU. They drove through the forest along state highway 92, possibly retracing the path taken by the UnSub, although in reverse. It was beautiful, green, and cool. Despite the occasional residential groupings, they drove past mostly trees or scrub, no humans in sight.

Reid spent the drive thinking about Amy Lynch's journal, which he had read that morning, sitting in her room, while Hotch moved things on and off her shelves in search of additional information about the victim. Something had caught his attention between the entries from earlier in the year and those closer to the date of her death - he wasn't sure what yet, and he flipped back and forth between pages in his memory.

"Reid." From Hotchner, scowling at the road as he drove. JJ, in the passenger seat next to him, looked up from her Blackberry and over her shoulder at Reid.

"Yes?"

"Is that your phone?"

Comparing the pages of Amy Lynch's journal, Reid had been unaware of the soft chime in his pocket that signalled a call from Calla Oliver. He frowned. It was 11am, on a Sunday, both here and in Virginia.

"Hello?" Just as he picked it up, the call went to voicemail. He punched a button and dialed her number. No answer. His frown deepened. Why had she been calling in the middle of the day? Just then, they pulled into 19922 Alberta Street in Oneida. Reid pocketed his phone, making a mental note to try again once they were settled in.

The Oneida police station was squat with a green roof, and somewhat isolated on its stretch of road. Thick power cables ran in front of it to either side. Beautiful, unusually tall willows stood across the road. A tall man with dark hair and powerful muscles emerged from the building and focused his gaze on JJ. "Agent Jareau? I'm Mike Cross - we spoke on the phone. I've been working with your colleagues here." JJ extended a hand, and took over Hotchner's introductions.

_Reid vocab:_

*Involuntary movements of the stomach muscles; it's what causes your stomach to growl when you're hungry!


	11. In the Dog House

**A/N: I'm still not too sure of my pacing here. All reviews and thoughts are welcome!**

Cross had oriented the bulk of the BAU team quickly and left them to settle in in the Oneida station. Like the police station in Corbin, the area the team had was small and not enclosed, so they would have to be careful about the conversations they had there. Hotch phoned Morgan and Prentiss to let them know the rest of the team had arrived.

"Ask them if she kept a journal," Reid interjected.

"Reid wants to know if Sarah Nickerson kept a diary or journal." Pause. A glance at Reid.

"Can they bring it along, as-as evidence?"

Hotchner conferred with whomever was on the other end of the phone. "Morgan says the family is somewhat displeased with the arrival of the FBI on their doorstep, especially since so much time has passed. He can probably get it, but they will be more upset. Do you need to see the whole thing?"

Reid pursed his lips, thinking. He was still pondering what he thought he'd seen in Amy Lynch's journal – her diction had changed, he thought, a few months prior to her death. Previously, she'd written like a young and only reasonably educated woman – her words tended to be short and she didn't bother to correct misspellings. But closer to the time of her death, she had begun to use longer verbs and nouns, and she wrote for longer stretches at a time, occasionally correcting spelling errors. He wasn't sure what to make of the change, but he was curious to know whether this had been repeated in Nickerson's case.

"No," he decided, "just entries from the three months immediately prior to her death, whatever is there, and from a year before that."

Hotch relayed the request. "Morgan says he can photograph the pages and send them to Garcia to clean them up; she'll have them sent here and we can print them out." He hung up the phone. "What are you looking for?"

"I'm not sure," the young agent said frankly. "But Amy Lynch's word choices changed significantly in the three months before she died. It could be unrelated, or it could be significant; I don't know. But I'd like to see if the same pattern repeats with our other two victims." He settled down in a chair and listed out some of the more frequent word change patterns, posting them to the corkboard that Prentiss and Morgan had had set up. Then he began to quickly read through Julie Romback's dayplanner. Romback hadn't kept a diary, but her appointment book was full of little notes about her days and idle thoughts, so it should offer the same type of insight.

X-X-X-X-X

Morgan and Prentiss returned from their meetings with Daniel Nickerson looking drained, but victorious. After protesting that he knew nothing about a dog, that his sister didn't have a dog, that his mother was allergic and besides, hated dogs, and belligerently asking about attorneys and warrants, Nickerson collapsed in on himself and admitted what he knew.

Sarah Nickerson had made friends with a young man at one of the dog breeding events near Oneida. She told her brother he was a doctoral student in religion at University of the Cumberlands, across the Kentucky border. At first, they were just friends, meeting for the occasional meal or coffee, but the relationship deepened after four months and the two began dating. At that time, the couple began making more serious plans with one another, and adopted a pet, a Boston Terrier, which lived with the student. Sarah had asked her brother to keep the relationship absolutely secret; she feared her parents' reaction to his choice of major, his physical disfigurement – he walked with a limp, Daniel didn't know exactly why – and their bonding over animals. He had kept that promise until she died.

Following Sarah's death, Daniel reported what he knew about this student, Sam Duncan, to the Oneida police. They assured him they had investigated Sam but that nothing seemed to point to his involvement. He had an alibi for the majority of the timeframe Sarah's death could have occurred in, they told him, and Nickerson said that the police "just didn't seem too interested in him." He admitted that he hadn't told the police about the dog the couple had adopted, because he didn't see how that was important. He had never met Duncan himself.

Morgan had called Garcia from the car and set her to correlate this new name with all the other records she'd had available for the case. She called the team back just as Reid was positing that the change in Amy and Julie's language could potentially have resulted from being in a relationship with a man who made a big deal of his education and used complex words and grammar in his conversation. Maybe he made the women feel badly about their own vocabularies, intentionally or no – or perhaps they took it upon themselves to adopt his language.

Garcia cut him off mid-sentence and began quickly pouring out facts herself. Reid overheard Prentiss whisper to Morgan, "Can you imagine the two of them going at full speed at the same time?"

First of all, there was no Sam Duncan enrolled at the University of the Cumberlands, as a PhD in religion or otherwise. There were five students with the Duncan surname, three male. None of the males began with the letter S. However, there was a Stephanie Duncan, and she was indeed enrolled in a doctoral program in religious studies.

.

Like Amy Lynch and Sarah Nickerson, Stephanie Duncan had shopped at , and she had also used her debit card at the same café Julie Romback had frequented. This was the first real connection they had to the latest victim. But Stephanie Duncan wasn't as young as the victims – she was 32. Not to mention that she was a woman.

Reid piped back up, "You know, we didn't hear anything about an interview with Sam or Stephanie Duncan – or anyone with a similar name – in the casefiles on Sarah Nickerson. The case files indicate "no boyfriend" – and there is certainly no mention of a girlfriend."

Hotch looked at him, so Reid continued. "The case notes say that family was asked whether Sarah had any boyfriends, or had had any boyfriends recently. Her parents replied in the negative, but there aren't any notes on a conversation like this with Daniel. Which seems odd; normally, law enforcement presses immediate family pretty hard on romantic involvements."

"I don't know that I've ever heard of a case where a woman fit the profile of an anger retaliation rapist," Prentiss ventured, a bit tentatively.

"That's because they almost never do," Rossi responded. "It's exceedingly rare for a woman to commit rape, let alone in the context of murder."

"So what have we got here?" asked Morgan, fixing each member of the team with a stare in turn.

"I'm not sure, yet," Hotch admitted. "Morgan, Prentiss – do you think you could get anything additional out of Daniel Nickerson?"

The two exchanged a glance. "We can always try," Morgan responded, "but I'm not sure how far we'll get. We were just there and pushed him into admitting he'd been lying to his parents about his sister's relationship, even after her death."

Hotchner thought for a moment. "Agreed. Let's see what we can find out from Stephanie Duncan. Assuming she's still here."

Garcia confirmed and gave the SSA her last known residence and work. She'd collected a paycheck the previous week, so it was more likely than not this information was still good. Hotchner, Reid, and Rossi were dispatched to Duncan's home first. She also revealed that Daniel Nickerson had shared several credit card charges with Duncan in the previous four months.

As they were leaving, Reid felt a buzzing in his pocket, and quickly developed a guilty look.

"Reid. What is it?"

"Oh, uh, it's just, uh, my phone. I forgot to charge it, and it turned off."

"Leave it. We'll use the radios to communicate anyway." Reid set the plastic rectangle down on the station desk. They headed out, clipping wires to their ears. It was unlikely that Stephanie Duncan was their UnSub, but it was clear she was involved, and until they knew how, they would take all precautions.

X-X-X

Hotchner, Rossi, and Reid had arrived at Stephanie Duncan's house to find – nothing. Well, not nothing. In fact, they found quite a few items of interest, including a photograph of someone who matched Duncan's license picture with Sarah Nickerson, and a group photograph from a dog breeding show where Amy Lynch was visible in the background. But no Duncan.

Reid left Hotchner to search the foyer and found Stephanie Duncan's bedroom on the second try. A leash for a mid-sized dog hung from a hook on the wall. The bookshelves held religious texts and coursebooks, and another photo of Sarah Nickerson. He ran his fingers over several book spines, and looked for evidence of a journal. Nothing on the shelves. He turned towards the computer, ready to ask Garcia to look for diary entries there, but turned back towards Duncan's bed as something caught his eye. Stiff, brightly patterned fabric peeped from under the dust ruffle. A leash.

Reid knelt down to investigate. "Hotch!"

Rossi actually arrived first, and helped the young agent move the bed frame ninety degrees from the wall. The leash stuck up from under a loose board. Reid pried it up, nearly smacking Rossi in the face with a stapled end, and found himself looking at two bodies: one human, and one canine. The human's corpse appeared to be less than a week old.

"She might have died around the time Julie Romback was killed."

This victim, too, had been strangled. Although she had been hidden, and the others had not, she matched the signature; missing left hand, strangulation. The ME could confirm whether she'd been assaulted. The three agents focused sharply on the room, treating it now as a crime scene, searching for clues they would not have seen from another perspective.

Rossi broke the purposeful silence in the room. "Guys." In his hands, he held a thin golden necklace, with a locket open to reveal two photographs. One was Sarah Nickerson, and one was Stephanie Duncan. Reid looked at him enquiringly. Rossi flipped the locket over to reveal the engraving on the back. "To Sarah, from Daniel."

Their perpetrator was an UnSub no more – they knew him as Daniel Nickerson. Now all they had to do was find him.


	12. Hair of the Dog

**A/N: this chapter may veer closer to M ratings for mature ideas, although no graphic descriptions or overt references are included. Please be advised, and read at your own risk!**

In the SUV, Hotch was on the phone. He'd called the Oneida police and put out an APB on Daniel Nickerson. He also asked about the ability of the small department to set up checkpoints on the major highways in and out of the national park where the bodies had been found; it was clear from his scowl that the answer was not satisfactory. He then called the Corbin police to let them know they had identified the UnSub and gave them a general description. Corbin offered to set up a few checkpoints on their part.

As they drove towards the entrance to the park on 92, the three agents discussed what they knew so far with Morgan and Prentiss by phone. JJ was back at the Oneida station, assuring her media contact that he would be the first one to know when they were bringing a suspect back in custody, but they weren't releasing any names or identifying information at this time.

As Morgan was pointing out clear indicators of devolution from the state of Stephanie Duncan's body, Garcia interrupted them. Nickerson had left his cell phone at home, and so they weren't able to trace his location that way. The car registered to his name was a 2002 Chevrolet Oldsmobile, with no GPS or satellite radio. "I feel like we're doing police work in the '80s," Garcia complained.

"Daniel Nickerson shopped at almost every place Stephanie Duncan did in the whole year before she died," she said incredulously. "And before that, Duncan and Sarah Nickerson shared a lot of credit card activity, too."

"But all of that stopped two weeks ago, and the only place Duncan and Daniel continued to use their cards at was ."

"So he had been stalking Duncan since shortly before his sister's death. Then, two weeks ago, he suddenly stops - but continues to buy supplies for her dog. The dog she shared with his sister." Hotch continued, summarizing the team's hypotheses about Nickerson.

They were confident that Daniel had a very close relationship with his sister - perhaps too close. Garcia had found . . . questionable. . . website activity related to his IP address: chatrooms, videos, and other explicit materials relating to siblings. They reasoned that the discovery of Sarah's homosexuality - and her betrayal of him by lying to him about it - had threatened Daniel's sick fantasies about his sister so traumatically that he killed her in rage and jealousy and desperation. By removing her left hand, he was symbolizing that she was committed to one person only: him. The discovery of her relationship, serious relationship, with Stephanie must have been an additional blow.

"So why wait?" Morgan asked. "Why not kill Stephanie originally, too?"

Rossi responded that, more likely than not, a part of Daniel knew that by killing his sister, he was guaranteeing that he would never be able to achieve his disgusting fantasies in real life, whatever they were. "Keeping Stephanie alive," he said, fixing them with a somber gaze, "was a very tiny link to keeping Sarah alive."

The other two women he had murdered in the meantime had been replacements, stand-ins for Sarah. He had selected women he had encountered through stalking Stephanie Duncan, women who didn't know her or Sarah very well, and so would be even more rejecting of him, when they approached him, than would friends. This was guaranteed to repeat the feelings of rejection and betrayal that drove him to murder his sister initially. He might have offered a date, or some piece of assistance or advice - or he might have outright tried to coerce them into intimacy. Whatever he did, it was guaranteed to end one way: in their death.

"What do you want to bet," Prentiss hypothesized, "that at his house, the police will find a whole collection of left hands?" Nickerson continued to remove the hands, as he had done with his sister's body, to show possession, ownership and control.

It was the discovery of the locket, a gift from Daniel to his sister, that had severed the frail connection keeping Stephanie safe from him. Video surveillance from her bank revealed that she had worn the locket there in the morning, one week ago - most likely the day of her death. He must have thought that his sister was giving him away to her girlfriend, exposing him, devaluing him. He was so overcome with rage at this point that he had rushed, skipping elements of his previous fantasy and previous signature. Stephanie Duncan hadn't been left in the woods, near the lake the Nickerson children had spent their summers at. She had simply been thrown beneath the floor of her own home, buried like a dirty secret.

A call, possibly from one of the two police departments, interrupted the completion of the profile:: "Aaron Hotchner." Silence. "We're almost there." Hotch pressed his foot more firmly on the gas and the van accelerated towards Laurel Lake.

X-X-X-X-X

Daniel Nickerson was now awaiting trial in Corbin, Kentucky. Hotch's usual fierce look had darkened further, negotiating between Chiefs Cross and Campbell in their battles over custody and prosecution, but he had eventually reached a settlement that both men, and both departments, could accept.

Nickerson had remained silent since his arrest, not responding to first Morgan's, then Rossi's, attempts to provoke him by making explicit comments about his sister and their relationship. They had even sent Prentiss in, holding Stephanie Duncan's dog leash, to no avail. If he ever consented to an interview, he might provide useful information to VICAP or others, but the interest of the team lay in providing closure to the families and having confidence they had caught the killer. At this point, they were all pretty much done with Daniel Nickerson and his trail of bodies.

Except for Reid.

He hadn't explained to his own satisfaction why Amy Lynch, Sarah Nickerson, and Julie Romback had all started using better vocabulary in the months prior to their murders. Initially, on learning of Sam Duncan, Religion Major, he'd hypothesized that maybe each of the women had been romantically involved with the same man, more educated than they were. The man could have intentionally humiliated the women about their word choice, and embarrassed and abused them into improving their diction - or they could have all simply begun to use words that he used often. People often picked up one another's vocabularies, especially if they were close to each other.

But Sam Duncan didn't exist. Sarah Nickerson had invented him to protect herself from her family's prejudices. And Stephanie Duncan hadn't been connected in any material way to the victims, except for Sarah. Was it just a coincidence? Possibly. The human brain often created patterns where they didn't exist. But Reid knew that sometimes, one human brain identified patterns that others had missed. It couldn't hurt to spend a small amount of additional time here, especially if he could figure out why this pattern was drawing so much of his attention.

"Hey, Garcia, would you be able to correlate information across some of our recent files?"

"Aw, Reid, I hope you meant to ask if I could do that in my sleep with one hand tied behind my back."

"Why would I want -"

A sigh. "Never mind. What do you need?"

"I'd like you to give me a list of all of our case files where we mentioned a victim keeping a journal, or diary, or something similar. This may end up being smaller than the actual number of such documents I read in the course of investigations, but I think I'd like to start by considering the cases where the diaries were significant enough to make it into the official record."

"I thought you could remember everything you read?"

"I do, but I don't always read all of the official case files - at least, not the final versions. And I'd like to start by comparing only the cases where the diaries initially seemed significant."

"Sure thing." Garcia was all business now, to Reid's relief. "How far back you want me to go?"

"Since I started working there."

"Coming right up. You guys are on your way home soon - where do you want it sent?"

"Uh, we are? I mean, I'm not surprised - there's not that much left for us to do here. But how did you know?"

"I have alerts set for any time the jet files a flight plan. Someone has to be sure to welcome you home! Hey, speaking of, why are you calling me on the radio? Where's your cell phone, young man?" Garcia sounded as though she was speaking from knowledge.

Reid gulped. He'd left his cell phone at the Oneida station house, charging, before they left for Stephanie Duncan's house. The team had returned to Corbin, after arresting Nickerson in Kentucky; Morgan and Prentiss had gathered up all the BAU's belongings from Tennessee, while the remainder of the team cleaned up in Kentucky. They'd meet at the Carr airport, near the border between the states. Until then, either Morgan or Prentiss now had possession of Reid's fully-charged phone.

He wasn't sure which option was preferable. It wasn't that he didn't expect his colleagues to respect his privacy - he trusted them, for the most part, not to cross boundaries or truly violate his privacy. It was just that there was a lot they considered fair game, and if his phone happened to display "Calla Oliver" while Morgan was looking. . . he wasn't sure what to expect, but it had a 67.3% chance of being uncomfortable.

"I, uh, Morgan has it."

"Hmmm, fascinating. Are you going to get it back?"

"Um, Garcia? If there is something you are trying to tell me, maybe, you should just tell me? I, uh, I mean, everyone can reach me through the switchboard for now."

"Oh, okay, then, if you're not concerned. I just thought it was interesting that I'm talking to you at the same time I see your cell phone connected to one C. Oliver in New York. Bye, now!" She hung up.

"No, wait, Garcia, I - ah." A ring tone.

Reid's forehead puckered in a frown, the diaries from old cases momentarily displaced. He'd already missed a call from Calla at an unusual hour, and now she was talking to Morgan? What about? He gulped, audibly. He was pretty sure that his voice was distinct enough from Morgan's that Calla couldn't be confused. Fairly confident. He thought, they had been . . .seeing each other long enough know that surely she knew what his voice sounded like - or didn't sound like on the phone. Surely. He gulped again.

"Ready to go, Reid?" Rossi interrupted his thoughts.

"I, uh, yes. Yes, I am." He shouldered his bag and loped, slightly quicker than usual, towards the SUV. He was suddenly eager to get to the plane.


	13. Trailing

**A/N: if you're here for the general casefic and not the interiority/romance, skip this one and Ch. 14 – we'll pick casefic back up in 15! Thanks for playing! ;)**

Of course Reid did not use his phone on the jet. He knew that it wasn't that he _couldn't_, exactly, it was just that Federal regulations prohibited cell phone usage while in flight, and Reid was careful to scrupulously obey rules. At least, he was as an adult. So instead he sat with it in his right hand, flipping it back and forth in his palm, thinking.

He'd rescued the phone from Morgan, as Garcia had hinted, shortly after boarding the plane. "Hey, Reid," the older agent had said, fixing him with a serious stare. "I have something for you."

When Reid turned towards him with a puzzled expression, Morgan began smirking, and displayed Reid's fully-charged cell phone. He waved it back and forth in front of the young man's nose.

"You know, kid, you should be more careful with your _personal _belongings. What if someone had been trying to make a _personal _call? Or worse, what if one of your _colleagues _had _intercepted _a _personal _call?"

Reid reached towards the ceiling of the jet, and with surprising agility, plucked the phone out of Morgan's hand.

"Hey!" Morgan exclaimed, surprised. He clearly hadn't been expecting that from the lanky junior agent. His expression quickly reverted to a knowing smirk. "I also thought you should know - _Detective _Oliver said to tell you she loves you."

"Aww," Prentiss contributed, in mock sincerity, as Morgan sat across from her. "How sweet! She looooooves him!" She and Morgan looked knowingly at one another, then inclined their foreheads together and made cooing noises.

"Very funny, you guys." Reid had muttered sheepishly, holding the phone tightly. "I guess envy strikes the best of us."

"Envy of what?" asked Rossi, entering the jet.

"Nothing," Morgan said, "just a little lo-ove affair for our young Dr. Reid over here."

"Really?" enquired Rossi, one eyebrow ascending his forehead. "You don't say." He, too, settled down in the soft seats with a smirk.

Thankfully, the jibing had tapered off shortly after that; JJ was unusually absorbed in her file review as the plane lifted off, and the rest of the team adjusted themselves around her, without conscious thought, leaving Reid to his reflections and halfhearted juggling.

He didn't want to press Morgan for details of whatever conversation he had had with Calla; if there had been something urgent, she would have given Morgan a message - or if it had been really urgent, she would have reached Reid through the switchboard.

And yet, he was feeling - confused, somehow, in turmoil. He wasn't sure what was bothering him, exactly. He glanced quickly at Morgan, who sat loosely in his seat, sleeves pushed up to his elbows, reading. Reid looked back at his phone. Was it possible he was feeling jealous? The thought amused him slightly, even as he considered it might be true. He knew that the playboy act overlay a fundamental loyalty and goodness, and he wasn't honestly worried that Morgan would have said anything inappropriate on the phone. Even when Morgan flirted, he conveyed sincere respect and affection.

But he admitted to himself that Morgan's ease and confidence around women contrasted sharply with his own feelings of inexperience and uncertainty. He admitted that he always felt just slightly unsure of himself - Calla had come into his life so unexpectedly, and they enjoyed each other so much; irrationally, all of these unexpected benefits caused him to fear unexpected losses. He sighed softly and put the phone back. He knew that feelings like this were common, and even to be expected of someone with his experience in this situation. Unfortunately, this didn't make having them much more comfortable.

He was eager to land and hear her voice again.

Reid shook his head slightly, as if waving the thoughts away in order to focus on the stack of printouts in front of him. He set his cell phone to one side. As requested, Garcia had complied a list of all the cases during his tenure at the BAU where a journal or diary was mentioned. She'd sorted the cases into two initial groups, noting one set where these writings were electronic, and one where they were on paper. He steepled his fingers and stared out of the tiny window, thinking.

Reid recalled, with varying degrees of effort, each of the journals noted for the majority of cases. For three of them, he couldn't recall any text that was relevant, and he decided he would request copies, if there were any, from Records when he returned. He began reviewing the contents of the others mentally, stopping on occasion to make a note in the battered book he had retrieved from his bag. He worked for some time in utter focus, tuning out the muted conversations of his colleagues, the gentle flap of Morgan's pages.

Three-quarters of the way through the flight, Morgan got up, stretched, and walked to pick up some refreshments. He paused next to Reid's seat on his way back, considered, and sat.

"What are you working on?"

Reid looked up at him, still half-focused on his internal dialogue and the files he was reviewing.

"Ah - I noticed that the victims in this most recent case had all experienced a change in diction, in their vocabularies and word selection, a few months prior to their deaths. I'd initially thought that this was a direct result of their contact with the UnSub - or in this case, with Nickerson - that he had bullied them into improving their vocabulary, or they had all decided, for some reason perhaps common to their personalities, to improve their diction because of him."

"And now?"

"Now. . . I'm not so sure," Reid admitted, putting his notebook down and tucking his hair behind his ear. "I still think that that is the most likely cause. But I think there may be more." He looked up at Morgan, questioningly, as though gauging his interest.

"What more?" Morgan leaned forward, expectantly, his forearms resting on his knees. He caught Reid's unconscious glance at his cell phone, and smiled, briefly, to himself. Reid didn't notice.

"Well, I asked Garcia to pull up a list of all the cases I might have been involved with where victims had a journal or diary we thought significant enough to include in the case files. I've been reviewing the ones that I had read -"

"Mentally, of course," Morgan said.

"Yes, of course," Reid responded absent-mindedly, completely missing the sarcasm. Morgan rolled his eyes and folded his arms. "And I have found a similar pattern in at least four other cases."

"And you think they're connected?" The thin eyebrows lifted.

"I'm not sure. These murders were all committed in different states, with different signatures - there is no overt connections between the victims. I want to ask Garcia to run a broader correlation, of course, but I haven't been able to uncover anything myself. Moreover, the writing styles of all the victims, collectively, are very different. Some of these men and women were highly educated, fluent writers, some were near illiterate, and some were attempting to sound more educated than they were." Reid paused. "Besides -"

"Besides, we are 100% sure that we have caught the killers in all those cases and they were, in fact, guilty of the crimes. And they are different people." Morgan's eyebrows stayed at half-mast despite volunteering the answer.

Reid frowned. "Well, not 100% - there is a margin for error in every decision and conviction rate. But yes, we have a high degree of confidence - and in two cases, the killer actually confessed, or close enough to it."

"Are these results giving you reason to doubt any of those confessions? Or convictions."

"No," admitted Reid. "And so I'm not sure what I have here. It could be nothing: the human mind is often motivated to find patterns and meaning that it in fact invents. But I guess - I guess this one is bothering me, and I'm not convinced it's just a chance correlation."

The two agents sat silently for a moment. The faint noise of the jet's engines rose and fell, and Prentiss made a tiny sound in her sleep.

"Well, kid, I think there's no harm in thinking about it more if you find it interesting, certainly - and who knows? You could find something we've missed so far. Now, I agree that we've caught the right guys - when we've caught them - but it seems like contradicting that isn't likely to be the outcome of your research." Morgan pushed a sleeve back up from where it had slid down his arm. Reid glanced back at his cell phone.

"And, Reid?" he asked, getting up from the chair and collecting his drink.

"Yes?"

"You two have a good thing going. You know that, right?"

Reid blushed, and looked down at his feet for a moment. "Yeah. . . I do. Thanks, Morgan."

"Anytime."


	14. Home Sweet Home

**A/N: the next chapter will be starting up with the casefic focus again. Thank you for your kind comments – it is very encouraging to know people enjoy the story so far!**

Reid unlocked his door, and set his messenger bag in its usual space on the chair. He carried the go-bag with him, drawing up short as he approached his couch. Calla's things were still there, from the half a weekend they'd spent together.

"Calla?" he called, puzzled, confident he'd receive no reply. "Hello?"

He peered around doorways and flipped on the bathroom light. As he should have been, he was entirely alone in his apartment. He frowned.

Walking back into the kitchen, he called her as he pulled out the coffee apparatus. She picked up on the second ring.

"Hi," he said. He could hear the smile in his own voice, responding to their being connected.

"Hi, yourself," she said. "It's good to hear your voice. Did your Agent Morgan pass on my message?"

"Yes," he admitted, "he, uh, said, quote, you 'lo-oove me'." (He knew Prentiss had actually said this, but Reid thought it fair to attribute the mockery to Morgan. After all, Morgan had initiated the teasing.)

"Well," she responded, laughing, "he's not wrong, although that's not exactly how I said it. Listen, I tried to call you on Sunday – I, er, accidentally locked myself out of your apartment." This at least explained why her bag was sitting on his couch.

Calla had gone out to pick up a newspaper Sunday afternoon, in rather light clothes, bringing just her wallet with her – not Reid's keys. She had found herself back at the apartment with a paper, a cup of coffee, and no way in. He smiled at the thought of Calla standing outside his door with a weekend newspaper and a dripping cup of coffee, furiously swearing at the bus ticket she knew was safely tucked inside her luggage. For a competent and intelligent individual, she seemed uniquely unable to manage locks; he recalled a story about her being locked into the 'evidence room' overnight once.

"I confess I thought about breaking and entering, but I'm still a police officer," she said wryly. "Not to mention I don't actually know how to jimmy a lock – although I bet I could break your door _down_."

"Virginia Penal Code § 18.2-92," Reid commented, "breaking and entering with the intent to commit an undefined misdemeanor. I'm assuming you wouldn't be breaking and entering with the intent to commit any crimes against me or my property, which would be Section 18.2-90." He paused. "Actually, maybe you weren't going to commit any other misdemeanors at all, which isn't something set out in the penal code, but I think in that case they'd most likely charge you with the 'other misdemeanor' category."

"Thanks, Spencer." She paused just enough to indicate she was rolling her eyes at him. "I'm pleased you think ahead about these things."

They spoke for a few more minutes. She said she was at least glad she had had her wallet, which enabled her to buy another bus ticket, as well as a sweater for the remainder of the day. She'd left for New York shortly after the incident, deciding she'd rather be at home than wandering around Virginia, killing time. There wasn't anything she urgently needed in the bag, and so they'd agreed she would just retrieve it the next time she saw him. She was hopeful that she would hear back from some of her recent interviews within the next week or two. Reid wasn't sure what to say about the process that would sound entirely supportive, so he just made a noncommittal noise.

"By the way," she said before hanging up, "be careful when you lay down to sleep tonight." She declined to explain what she meant by this.

Setting his phone down on the table, Reid brought his own, drip-free cup back to his couch and sat on it, taking with him the notebook he'd retrieved from his leather bag containing initial notes on the diary-keeping victims. He consulted his watch: it was only 4:23pm on a weekday. Garcia should still be at the office, and able to have those records pulled for him.

He put his shoes back on, and donned his jacket and bag, then headed out the door to the office. He knew that the team was expected to rest for the rest of the day and come back fresh tomorrow, but he also knew that he wasn't likely to rest very peacefully with this new puzzle in front of him.

X-X-X-X-X

It was 12:17 am when Reid returned to his apartment, tired but excited. Of the three cases he hadn't recalled, one of them showed similar patterns of vocabulary to the four he'd already identified, including the Nickerson case. He still wasn't entirely sure where his investigation would lead, but he was more convinced that he hadn't just identified a random correspondence between events. Tired, he set his things down and stood in the middle of the apartment for a moment, thinking.

Then he prepared for bed, brushing his teeth, hanging his jacket carefully, patting a few piles of books and papers into place.

Although he prized his ability to think creatively and to innovate, Reid was a creature of habit in terms of his personal space and tasks. He suspected that his colleagues would find this surprising: although they often commented on certain tendencies, such as the amount of sugar he used in his coffee or the extent to which he would produce facts he considered interesting, if not relevant, to a discussion, they tended to think of him as erratic because he ate and slept irregularly – and did everything else that way, as far as they knew. These things were all true. Yet he derived comfort from following the same protocols, taking the same steps, with respect to his personal, private environment.

He always placed his messenger bag in the same chair near the door when arriving home from a case. He always turned the lights off before falling asleep – at least, when he intended to fall asleep; he wasn't consistent when he fell asleep accidentally. He used the same travel mug for coffee each day – he had three of the same one, in fact, so that he could always have it with him if he wished.

In fact, the French press Calla had given him had disrupted his routines just slightly; he had to adjust to needing more time to make coffee for himself, when he did, and to having slightly less room on the countertop, as well as making sure he washed it regularly. Reid thought of himself as reasonably tidy, but he had experienced some frustration at this, initially.

He knew that he wasn't in the grips of a mental illness which made it traumatic for him to experience changes in his habits. And he believed that being forced to make such changes could, in fact, be good for him – it was good for the mind to have new challenges to respond to. He found his work intellectually engaging, and emotionally challenging, and he often applied himself to those challenges, appreciating the growth that came from meeting them. But left to his own devices, he was unlikely to force changes in his habits: he just wouldn't devote the energy to it. As he looked at Calla's bag on his couch, he realized that he hadn't fully considered the impact on his habits, the adjustments he would need to make, if (or when?) she did move in with him.

The sight of her neatly packed things provoked mixed feelings in him. He admitted that he was slightly apprehensive about how all those seemingly tiny adjustments would feel, cumulatively. He thought that perhaps, by considering it beforehand, he would defuse any frustration or even resentment he might otherwise have experienced in the middle of the situation. More of his conscious mind felt excited at the thought of making room for her things in his closet, on his shelves. He imagined that it would be comforting to wake up in the morning and see her toothbrush next to his or her running shoes by his door. The same satisfaction he derived from maintaining things in their proper place in his home or in connecting previously disparate threads in a case: he imagined that having their lives interwoven that way would feel much like that. He briefly saw an image of her looking at him across the small table in his kitchen over coffee she had just made. Pale sunlight fell across her face, and the sight had caused a swell of contentment.

Then he remembered her cryptic instruction on the phone earlier. He swallowed. What had that meant?

Proceeding into his bedroom, he looked around carefully. Calla had a strong affinity for practical jokes, which he didn't share, although she rarely inflicted these on him: the stationhouse offered her plenty of opportunities to scratch that particular itch. Nothing appeared to be attached to the doorways. He opened the closet carefully, stepping back slightly as he did, as though removing himself from the line of fire. Nothing sprang out. He poked his head into the closet, looked around. Nothing.

Grimacing slightly, Reid crouched down and surveyed the floor beneath his bed. He sighted a crumpled orange sock in a far corner, which he retrieved and placed in a laundry bin in the closet. Nothing else. He rocked back on his heels and thought, continuing to look slowly around the room.

Finally, he conceded defeat and pulled back his covers and sheets. He nudged himself into bed, leaning over for a moment as he considered whether or not he wanted to continue reading case files. Deciding that he was at a reasonable stopping point for the evening, he lay his head on the pillow. And then he heard the crinkle.

Lifting his head, he slid a bony hand underneath his pillow and retrieved a slightly crumpled piece of paper, bearing Calla's almost illegible block print. There was also a slim rectangle wrapped in green paper, bearing a chocolate coin wrapped in gold foil.

_Spencer,_

_Welcome home! I hope the case was resolved efficiently with no loose ends, and that there was a minimal number of victims. I missed you for the rest of the weekend; it made me think how nice it will be when we are in the same place more often._

_I've included a reward for your efforts, to make up for childhood opportunities missed._

_Love,_

_The Tooth Fairy_

His mouth widened in a genuine grin. He had recently been telling her a few stories from his childhood, that had seemed relevant in the conversation – including how he had reasoned against the existence of common childhood fairy tales at the age of 3 – and how his mother had always been politely scornful of parents who used such things as excuses to give their children small gifts. She had laughed, calling the story "what I would have expected," but had also asked him if he hadn't missed out on these small demonstrations of affection. He said that he had missed out – or experienced missing out – a good deal more with respect to other things. Calla herself was a highly demonstrative person, often leaving tiny gifts and notes for colleagues, families of victims she met, the man who sold her her morning newspaper – almost anyone she had formed a connection to, no matter how slight. He should have known that he would be included.

He placed the candies (having deduced, correctly, that the thin green bar was chocolate) on top of his stack of case files, and fell asleep with a slight smile on his lips. He wasn't aware that he'd kept the note folded in one hand.

X-X-X-X-X


	15. Home Fires

**A/N: Reidspeak is defined at the bottom of the page. I try to write his internal dialogue the way he speaks, so I don't always use common words - if I don't, I will define them below!**

Reid read quickly through some files he'd brought from his desk as he waited patiently in the conference room for the remaining members of the team to arrive. Prentiss was there with him, staring in disappointment at her coffee mug, as though it were a smart kid who'd been caught smoking pot on the playground. She glanced at Reid as JJ and Hotch filed in. "Do you actually like paperwork?"

He pursed his lips briefly before answering. "Well, no, I think nobody actually likes paperwork, but I do see how the standardization and accumulation of data can be extremely useful to the BAU - and other agencies - in solving future cases and expanding our understanding of profiling. So I don't resent having to do it, although sometimes I find it inconvenient." He steepled his fingers on the table, appearing satisfied with his answer.

Prentiss rolled her eyes. "Great. Leave it to you to find a noble purpose in bureaucracy."

"Actually-" Reid began, but was cut off by Hotchner calling the group to attention.

"Alright, everyone," the Unit Chief said, as Morgan settled into his chair. "JJ?"

A young mother and her two year old son had been found dead in their homes in Clearmont, Wyoming, outside of Buffalo. Her older son, who was five, had been staying with his grandmother in Moorcroft, almost two hours away. They had discovered the bodies on the boy's return home. The two had been stabbed, and the crime scene photos showed a house awash in spatter.

"That looks like serious overkill," Morgan commented, as JJ flipped through photo after photo of stained and smeared walls. "Whoever this is, this was deeply personal."

"If that's true, he must have known about the other child." Prentiss leaned in. "Where is he staying now?"

"With the grandmother," Hotch answered. "The father is a member of the National Guard Reserves and had been away on training. They've granted him hardship leave, and he's on his way home as we speak."

"I guess that provides him an alibi," said Prentiss. Hotchner nodded. They all knew why JJ had chosen this case - it was potentially the type of killer known as a family annihilator, meaning that the Kole's remaining son, and potentially his dad and any relatives in the area, should all be considered to be at risk. JJ took them quickly through the pertinent details of the case, and confirmed that she had been called in by the woefully understaffed local law enforcement, who consisted of the Clearmont Fire Department. The nearest police were in Buffalo, 42 minutes away. For a town of 123 people, that was actually in line with the national average.

The team returned to their desks to bring their previous projects into a reasonable holding pattern: they would be wheels up in an hour.

Reid caught Prentiss shooting him a frustrated look as he sat down and read through three case files in 4.2 minutes and began making summary notes. "I don't actually _write_ any faster than anyone else," he explained.

"Hmph."

K-K-K-K-K

Buffalo, Wyoming was fairly empty. If Buffalo was this sparse, Clearmont would only be worse. Looking around as they disembarked, the team could see mountains in the distance, sharp in the clear air, and tarmac. It was lovely, and quiet - the town of Buffalo wasn't much fuller. A Coldwell Banker, a forlorn tire repair shop, some thinly scattered trees.

The team shook hands and met the local law enforcement, who'd been summoned to Clearmont by a reasonably upset call from the Clearmont Fire Department - made up of approximately 15 volunteers. "Most of what they do is on the order of rescuing cats from trees and helping people with water mains," opined the Sherriff, as he closed the van door behind Morgan. JJ and Reid stayed behind in Buffalo, but the rest of the agents would start out together at the house, and split off from there to explore any other sites of interest.

As he began mapping out the relatives of the victims, Reid mused, "In a town of 123 people, two of them have been murdered, and another four are arguably at risk. That's almost five percent of the population - it must have an impact almost everyone who lives in Clearmont."

"I just hope we're able to make headway before it gets any worse," JJ responded. "In a town this small, it's easy for panic to start - I'm surprised things are as quiet as they have been, so far." She flashed Reid a rueful expression, and bent back over her Blackberry, frowning. It didn't appear the satellite signals were consistent here.

Reid went back to his maps. It wasn't uncommon in communities of this size for relatives to live reasonably closely together - given the population density of Wyoming, however, "reasonably closely" included a larger area than it would in the eastern part of the country. The ME had estimated the victims had been killed over twelve hours before they were found, which would have been sometime before 9pm the previous day. The UnSub therefore had ample time to distance himself from the crime scene, yet family annihilators tended to stay close - or at least, close to the remaining members of the family who were the next targets. He frowned. The probability cloud* for the UnSub's next location was still large, covering 706 square miles. Of course, unlike the atomic model, the UnSub's cloud had areas of higher or lower density - it was unlikely that he would be sitting equidistant from the roads, known population centers, which carried things like food, water, and medication. However, Wyoming had its share of survivalist groups, and it wasn't out of the realm of probability that their UnSub could live fairly independently of human civilization. Reid continued thinking, and making some notations, then set the maps aside to focus on victimology for a while.

Meanwhile, Hotchner, Morgan, and Prentiss had pulled up to the Kole's house. It was a small ranch house, complete with picket fence, and a large patio area. Like other homes in the area, the Wyoming fields spread out in a vast expanse behind the deck. Prentiss shivered slightly: it felt desolate. A lone, plastic tricycle had been parked near the picket fence in the front, and the gate was ajar.

The Clearmont F.D. had clearly lacked police tape; the property was strung around with a thick beige rope, and a thin, tanned man in his mid 40s stood at a corner of the fence. He stood confidently, but his moving fingers near his belt loops gave away his nervousness.

"Afternoon. You must be the FBI." He extended a hand.

John Lambert was one of the members of Clearwater's Fire Department. He'd served proudly for twelve years. He had a wife and three children, and considered the Koles neighbors, despite living 45 minutes away. There were only three schools in Clearmont - Elementary, Junior High, and Highschool, and all of the children knew one another. John held a white-collar job in Buffalo, at the same bankers the team had seen when they arrived.

He walked them through the house and narrated what the Department had found on arrival. His voice shook slightly: he didn't impart many useful details, and the team knew that the narration wouldn't benefit them. But it would be a great help to this man in beginning to deal with the darkness he'd seen.

Mindy Kole and her son, also James, had been slain in the house's main room, near the archway that divided this room from the kitchen. The distance of the blood splatter - and the gratuitous smearing of gore - made the overkill even more obvious in person than it had been in photographs.

"There's a lot of blood on these toys," Morgan commented, as he knelt down to inspect them more carefully. Prentiss bit her lower lip. "In fact -" he looked up at Hotchner, the sole parent from the BAU in the room. "Would you say that a two year old was likely to have been playing with all these toys at once? I don't think they were just left out: the rest of the house is very well kept."

Hotch scanned the surroundings intently once more. "I agree. So the UnSub put the toys here. He knew where to get them, and he brought them out on purpose."

"Why?" This from Prentiss. Her calm poise remained unshaken, but her teammates knew without looking for confirmation that her eyes would look slightly wetter than normal. She was always more deeply affected by crimes involving children.

Morgan looked back down at the bloodied plastic dump truck. He traced a finger over its rounded edge. "I don't know."

Hotchner sighed. "Well, if there is some significance in these particular toys, we should determine what it is. Send photos to Garcia - serial numbers, logos. See if she can link them together."

"You got it." Morgan pulled out his phone and began snapping photos.

Prentiss pulled away from the group and wandered out to the deck they'd seen approaching the house.

"Guys." Morgan continued snapping, and Hotchner walked briskly out to join her.

"What is it?"

"They didn't mention this." Prentiss extended a finger to the northeast, but she hardly needed to. A scarlet arrow had congealed across the deck, ending in a puddle underneath a beautiful, metal toy fire truck. CSU - such as it was in Buffalo - hadn't included any photos of the exterior of the house.

"That's not a toy for a two-year-old," Hotchner stated calmly. Prentiss knelt near the truck, mimicking Morgan's stance earlier as he walked out to join them.

"Yeah. I don't think you'd give this even to a five-year-old. It's very delicately made. It's more of a model, than a toy." She tucked a swatch of long black hair behind her ear as she craned down to look beneath it. "I think - I think there's something underneath it."

She gently pulled the truck upwards with a gloved hand, wincing slightly as it came unstuck from the gore. She appeared momentarily at a loss, then gestured with it to Lambert, who had hung back near the kitchen door. "John. Make sure you handle this with gloves - let's see if we can't get prints from it. The metal is likely to pick up oils easily."

A folded paper rested in the remaining blood, mostly soaked through. There was scrawled writing, in black ink or crayon, but it was hard to make out. She looked at Morgan. He looked back. The one word they could both clearly see ended in "EXT".

- - -  
Reidspeak:  
* _probability cloud: a concept most commonly found in physics - used there to describe the likelihood of an electron being in a certain location in an atom. The model suggests that there is a cloud like region where the electron is likely to be found, where it has been, and where it is likely to be going, in its orbit. I thought Reid might well use this concept to think about how likely it was that the UnSub would be in a particular location. _


	16. Costly Clues

**A/N: I'm so very sorry it's taken me so long to post the next chapter! I've had a bit of a family emergency (everyone is OK now, though) and so enjoyment had been shelved for a bit. Thanks to anyone out there still reading for your patience and bearing with me - and it shouldn't be so long until the next update!**

Garcia had struck out in linking the children's toys in any way. Different manufacturers, different producers – they had even been bought in different places, some cross-checked with credit card activity for family vacations. "Give us some good news, Baby Girl," Morgan directed, and then bit the inside of his cheek, invisibly. He knew that speaker phone was an unlikely restraint on Garcia's edgy commentary, and the last time he'd asked for good news, he got nothing but innuendo. His mouth quirked upward, involuntarily, at the memory. At least it was _clever _innuendo.

Amazingly, perhaps out of respect for the interconnected law enforcement personnel standing around the conference table, the technical analyst behaved herself this time.

The metal fire truck was, indeed, a collector's item of sorts. The trucks were handmade and painted in small lots – at least compared to toy production runs – and were sold only by the producer and three authorized retailers. They cost north of $65 apiece, so the UnSub either had to have access to the models and could steal them, or had sufficient money to buy them – especially because they sold most frequently in lots of six. (Reid helpfully chimed in that the median income in Clearmont was approximately $66,793, which earned some elbowing and whispers from the volunteer FD.)

The FBI agents exchanged glances. Six of these didn't bode well.

The Fire Department staff seemed to pick up on the tension, shifting from foot to foot, loosening collars. One, rather comically, leaned forward to speak into Morgan's receiver – although Garcia could have picked him up just fine from where he stood. "So, can you find out who bought them?"

"Alas, no, my handsome-sounding voice," she returned, causing the fifty-something portly guy in overalls to blush and rock back on his heels, while two other volunteers elbowed one another in the ribs. "I gave you the good news, first, at your request, but there is bad news to follow: there's not a single recorded purchase of these trucks anywhere in the entire Buffalo State." Everyone's mood darkened perceptibly.

Morgan volunteered, "Can you cross-check purchases against the dates and locations of the Kole's vacations? Maybe there's a connection from a trip."

"Already done, my love, and the web remains unwoven There are purchases of the trucks in some of the places the Koles went to – Nevada, Arizona, California, and once, Ohio – but never at or within two months of the same time."

"Thanks, Garcia." Morgan snapped his cell phone shut. The small group slowly scattered back out to their respective corners of the Fire District's building, leaving the federal agents in a small group. Morgan sighed and ran a hand across his head.

"Hotch," he explained, his brow furrowing, "I'm not sure where else to go from here. We've spoken to the Kole's friends in Clearmont" - an easy task, as the 123 people who lived in the town were grouped closely together, and the public buildings were clustered in one spot - "and we've talked to the grandmother and to Mindy's sister, who lives in Buffalo. There are no links to the trucks, and no one seems to have any reason to want to hurt these people - they haven't recently come into any money, or lost any, no notable disagreements or fallouts, nothing. Just simple, ordinary lives. I'm frankly at a bit of a loss for what to do next."

Hotchner frowned. "I agree, there's not much to work with yet." He looked around at his agents, poised for action. He sighed.

"Morgan. Why don't you and Prentiss take a ride to Moorcroft, and speak with the grandmother and the surviving boy. They may be able to develop some leads for you or suggest new ones. Reid and Rossi, I'd like you to visit the sister in Buffalo. JJ and I will stay here and meet with Mr. Kole - he is arriving shortly."

The team dispersed, moving with greater focus than the Clearmont folks who had preceded them. Reid shouldered his messenger bag and scanned the room for a place to dispose of his styrofoam cup, which had a few cubic centimeters of cold coffee and sugar sludge at the bottom. The room the BAU was using was pretty empty - his geographical materials were up on a corkboard, and crime scene photos were on a new-looking table, but there were too few chairs, fresh paint, and no wastebasket. He stepped through the doorway into a common area with a door leading out onto Front Street, which was slightly ajar. He spied a trash can in a corner, and headed for it.

Focused on his goal, he didn't look up as he brushed against someone who was heading from the direction of the street - reflecting later, he realized she must have come through the open door moments before. He murmured, "excuse me", still looking down at his feet. He heard a soft whimper that snapped his head up and he pivoted on one heel.

Standing before him was a woman in her thirties with long brown hair, slightly damp and bedraggled. Her eyes were wide with shock, pupils dilated, and she held her hands palms-out in front of her lower abdomen, in a gesture the doctor knew he had made many times. She had long, elegant fingers, which trembled. Her palms were covered with blood. They stared at one another for what felt like a long moment.

Reid raised his hands up and moved quickly but gently towards the woman. "Are you okay? What happened?" She stood where she had stopped, huffing as tears fell down her face. "I, I went - I found. . . " she trailed off. Her hands shook more severely.

"Come with me," he said authoritatively, raising his voice as he directed her into the BAU's room and sat her on a chair. "Hotch!"

Hotchner, who was standing in another conference area with JJ and John Lambert, looked up, and reacted to the bloodied woman. He spoke quickly to JJ as he strode over. "Get her a cloth," he said, "and an evidence bag."

K-K-K-K-K

Two days after the FBI's arrival following the deaths of Mindy and David Kole, the population of Clearmont had been reduced from 123 to 117. JJ had been on the local news every night, and was making more public appearances than usual - she also spoke on several radio programs, attempting both to soothe the populace and encourage them to share information; when she'd gone out to get food for the team, she'd been stopped by people seeking reassurance, who recognized her from the broadcasts.

The investigation was fully under way, now, with evidence from three crime scenes, only two of which were staged, and everyone, local or federal, was on high alert. Even one grisly murder could inflame a small town - the death toll in the past week was unparalleled in Clearmont's history and the entire population was terrified.

The woman Reid had literally bumped into had gone to visit her friends after work, neighbors of the Koles, and found the couple and their young son splattered, as Morgan had put it, all across their ranch house. Another fire truck had been left at the scene, but no note this time. It had taken them forty-five minutes to get the story out of her – Lambert and the local volunteers had found the family before she got much of the way through.

As JJ had patiently explained (using language that was less stark, for the sake of local emotions), the team remained convinced they were dealing with a family annihilator, and the neighboring Learys had unfortunately been caught in the crossfire. Maybe they had encountered the UnSub, or had information that could lead to (most likely his) capture.

The family appeared to have been gunned down while getting ready for dinner. A blackened pot of noodles was on the stove, vegetables half-chopped on a cutting board in the kitchen, where the young mother lay face-down on the floor, a kitchen knife and half a cucumber underneath her elbow. Her son and husband were in a family room, slumped over a game of Sorry.

The house had a direct view of the Kole's porch, where the fire truck had been left after the first murder, and the two families had often crossed into one another's homes without any warning.

The next morning, despite the new evidence obtained and the long distances, the agents decided to follow through with Hotchner's original instructions, and departed for Moorcroft and Buffalo. Reid and Rossi arrived first, but too late to help Mindy Kole's sister Kim. Like Mindy and David, she was found in her home, arranged with care, a metal fire truck outside her back door (she had no porch) and evidence of serious rage despite the care with which the scene was arranged. Even Morgan remarked on the violence of the crime scenes. This one was ugly.

Morgan and Prentiss had taken Ben Kole and his grandmother back to Clearmont, where they were under constant guard next door to Reid's room in Clearmont's "Best Kept Secret" inn.

James Kole was supposed to be holed up with his mother-in-law and son, but, unsurprisingly, couldn't stay down that long, after a day of mourning - he'd insisted on coming down to the Fire District each day, desperate to be of help.

The team had seen this before, many times - men who were used to power, control, competence, brought low and frustrated by the gruesome death of the person they were supposed to protect. If they had been working out of a local field office or police department, they could have relied on local law enforcement to keep the well-meaning family at a distance, unless the FBI needed to talk to them - but here, there weren't any standard procedures, and the fire department volunteers knew everyone too intimately to handle them well. So Kole was allowed to linger. Luckily, he wasn't in the way too much, and was respectful of Hotchner and the team.

He seemed to feel the most comfortable with JJ, and occasionally would pull her aside to talk quietly about the investigation, and about his wife and son. And so they were talking in one corner of the conference area about Mindy and her volunteer work when Garcia's call came in.

Morgan knew instantly from her tone that what Garcia had to say would be useful – but very sad.

"Guys," she said. "I've found something."


	17. Sweet on You?

**A/N: Traffic stats indicate I have a lot of readers – thank you all for your interest! It would mean so much to me if you would leave a word or two of guidance – tell me what you like, and what you don't! It doesn't have to be long; every comment is greatly appreciated! (And many thanks to faithful commenter Yaba!)**

**I fixed a few typos I'd found - the next chapter should be up tomorrow! **

Garcia had found Andrew Jameson, a second cousin of Mindy Kole's. Andrew's family had lived next door to Mindy's in Buffalo since before she was born through her eighth year. Given that there was only one elementary school in the area, it was reasonable to assume the two children saw one another frequently in school at least – and not a far stretch to imagine they played together during holidays or after school.

But Andrew's family had moved to Montana and left no trace of the boy behind when they did – Garcia found no health records, no records of school enrollments, no license permit applications, no nothing that would indicate they took Andy with them. Local newspapers in both areas had nothing to report about any harm coming to a ten year old boy – Garcia had even gone so far as to research contemporaneous adoptions of boys around that age both in Pryor (MT) and in Buffalo. "Bup-," as she said "-kis." Andrew Jameson had completely fallen off the map.

His parents had moved reasonably frequently in the following years, ending up in Billings prior to their deaths. They had had no more children, before or since, and they lived and spent modestly. Outside of some kind of recurring health issue for the couple, their lives – at least as much of their lives as could be reconstructed digitally – were unremarkable.

As Garcia wound down her tale, several voices spoke at once.

"Health issue?" enquired Reid, an eyebrow quirking upwards as he leaned towards the speakerphone. "What sort of health issue, Garcia? Were you looking at their medical records?"

"Yeah, of course – I had to find out if Mrs. J had been admitted for any subsequent births."

"But," she continued, "I struck out with the chronic conditions." Reid raised the other eyebrow to match the first, focusing intently on the black plastic handset of the Fire District's new phones. He was, in fact so intent on what Garcia would say next, and the theory beginning to take shape in his brain, that he was essentially unaware of the events taking place around him.

Jim Kole had had no response when Andrew Jameson's name was first mentioned, and he hung in the back of the group with JJ, listening with a slight frown on his face. Morgan, making note of Kole's expression, had decided that Mindy Kole hadn't been entirely forthcoming about her childhood with her husband, and intended to bring that up following the call, once Kole could be safely shepherded away.

But when Garcia mentioned Billings as the Jamesons' final residence, Kole's eyes widened and he gripped JJ's hand fiercely, causing a sharp intake of breath from the media liason. Hotch had spun on one heel and fixed Kole with a piercing glare while Garcia wound up. As Reid opened his mouth to follow up with her, Hotchner had said, "What do you need to tell us?"

The paired revelations continued from there. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Jameson had any chronic health conditions in their medical files outside of rheumatoid arthritis in her case and persistent high cholesterol in his. Both conditions were easily manageable for out-of-pocket expenditures of less than $100/month.

However, Mr. Jameson – and, one month, Mrs. Jameson – had written a check each month for $250 to the Billings Clinic, a small institution that had never been more than 50 miles from any of the places they had lived. The hospital's accounting system was not connected to any internet-capable systems, and Garcia hadn't been able to determine how the payments were applied. Upon Mr. Jameson's death, one-quarter of their assets had passed to the Clinic in his will. Garcia had assumed it was a bequest in gratitude for whatever services he had received.

Reid looked up, expectantly, saying "I think we've found-" and stopped short.

Mr. Kole had been explaining to Hotchner, Prentiss, and JJ that his wife had been involved in a number of charitable activities. "Mindy is – w, was – a thoughtful and selfless person," he said, by way of introductions. JJ nodded at him encouragingly.

One of Mindy Kole's many activities had to do with the Billings Clinic. He'd seen the name on some of her donation checks, and once her sister had tagged her in a photograph on Facebook that showed a sign with "llings" on it in the background. He'd asked her about it, and she had said it was just a private institution that offered good treatment to mental patients. He hadn't thought any more about it.

Mrs. Jameson had passed away following her husband's death just one month ago. Unlike Mr. Jameson, she left no property to the Clinic at all. The checks had stopped following his death as well.

Garcia had found no records of a patient named "Jameson" – of any sort – when she'd made her initial search. But there were three patients who had the initials A.J., and one of them, Arnold Johnson, was the same age as Andy Jameson would have been. As Garcia informed Morgan, on his way to the car, "Arnie" was discharged four days before Mindy Kole's death, because the funds used to support his stay had stopped flowing.

K-K-K-K-K

"Arnold Johnson" was – and this perhaps went without saying – digitally no different than Andy Jameson had been. He had no credit cards nor bank accounts, no applications for a lease or purchase of any kind of shelter, no registration at a post office, no cellular phone, no paystubs. Whatever vehicle he had been using to get from Billings to Buffalo and wreak havoc through Wyoming, he had obtained either through paying cash or by stealing it, and he was driving it illegally.

Morgan and Prentiss had gone back to the Kole family house, to see if any trace of a connection with her cousin could be found among Mindy's things – Garcia was ferreting out connections with the Clinic through Mindy's digital traces. JJ was preparing a press release about Jameson, frustrated by a lack of visual information she could give the public.

Reid remained at the Fire District house, lost in thought in front of a corkboard with local maps on it. From time to time, he'd scribble furiously on a map of southern Montana, and then go back and adjust his traces on northern Wyoming. He pursed his lips in concentration as he thought. When a tentative tap came on his shoulder, he was so engrossed that he yelped and jumped backwards two feet.

A responsive jump followed, as his tapper was startled by his reaction.

He turned to see the Learys neighbor, the young woman who had found the bodies and stumbled into the Fire District to announce her discovery, standing with a foil tin extended in her arms. She was in better condition than the last time he had seen her – her hair was combed back, and she wasn't covered with gore, but her face was still pale, and her body language was generally tense and fearful.

"Hi, uh, Mr. Reid," she began, gesturing slightly with her tin tray.

"Doctor, actually," he corrected gently. He wasn't sure what she was doing here – what was her name exactly? Something like Julie, Julia, Julianne. Maybe Juliana?

She tucked a strand of long brown hair behind her ear and briefly looked away. "Oh, Doctor Reid."

There was an awkward pause. Reid shot a glance back to his maps. "Can I, uh, can I help you with something?" he asked.

"No, yes, well, I," she stammered hastily, then started over. "I had brought some cupcakes for the fellows at the Fire Department here," she said, "and I wanted to offer some to your team. I, I wanted to thank you -all of you- for your help when. . . you know, the other day." She held out the tin with a smile.

Reid's face brightened at the offer of cupcakes.

"Gee, that's really kind of you. Thank you so much!" he enthused, taking the proffered tin with a smile. He looked around for other members of his team to share the goodies with, and caught an odd smirk from JJ in the background.

"Are you doing alright?" he asked, as he shuffled some papers aside on the conference table to make room for the baked goods.

"I guess," Julie/a/ana said doubtfully from behind him. "I. . . haven't been home yet. I was going to go today. But - well, it just feels scary to be back there. I've been staying with a friend, and she was going to come with me, and. . .well, I'm going to try again today." she trailed off.

Reid turned to face her again, having secured a location for the treats.

"It's very common to have this kind of reaction after an experience like yours," he said earnestly, providing data as a default response. "Many people who experience a traumatic event close to home need time to readjust to and feel safe in their surroundings; however, as long as the trauma sufferer is a witness, rather than a victim, in many cases, he or she is able to resume normal activities in the area where the event occurred."

Many of Reid's bursts of facts to victims and witnesses failed to reassure, he'd noticed, and often provoked incredulous questions, like "is that supposed to make me feel better?" He wasn't really able to forestall his impulse to share information – in his case, having information really did make him feel better. But he paused, lips parted, as he wondered whether these new facts would calm or upset the listener.

She bit her lip. "Okay," she said doubtfully. "I guess that's good. Right?"

Reid opened his mouth further to respond, but caught sight of JJ shaking her head in the background. He closed it again. And then he had an idea.

"You know, I had been planning to go back to the Learys house – I'd like to re-examine their lines of sight to the Kole's. Now that we know more about the UnSub, I may be able to determine some of his paths of motion following the various crimes. Would you like me to drive you to your house on the way?"

"Sure!" Her face brightened, and she smoothed her hair once more. "That would be great, thank you so much, Dr. Reid. I'm sure I'll feel much better with you around!" She reddened.

"OK," he said, oblivious. "Let me just collect some files, and then we'll go."

As he pulled together some files and a copy of a local topographic map with handwritten scribbles, Morgan sidled up next to him and reached in for a cupcake from Juile/ana's tin. "Reid, man, be careful" he said _sotto voce._ Reid looked up, puzzled.

"She likes you," he explained. "and I don't think you want to give her the wrong impression."

"What?" he said a little too loudly, and then looked furtively at her over his shoulder. "You can't be," he said again, more quietly. And then he continued, "no, uh, I don't."

Morgan knew that Reid was too good a kid to lead the lady on, especially because of Calla Oliver. And it was only because of this knowledge that he was fully enjoying the look of panic on the young agent's face as his brain worked furiously to find a way to extricate himself from the situation.

"Just drop her off, kid. It was nice of you to offer." He reassured the doctor. "It'll be fine."

Reid gulped nervously as he shouldered his messenger bag. He looked around the conference room. JJ's smirk had deepened, but she was bent studiously over a memo pad, making notes on her press release.

"Uh, see you later," he said to no one in particular, gesturing for the witness to precede him out of the station house.

"Bye!" said Morgan cheerily as they exited.


	18. Lines Are Crossed

"and so, in most cases, eyewitnesses to crimes have a higher rate of misidentification than if they had randomly guessed." Reid finished his most recent sentence and paused for breath. "Oh, uh, this is your house," he said with relief, pulling up next to the driveway. He had kept up a steady stream of crime-witness-related facts on the twenty-three minute drive, hoping to preclude any more personal discussion. Inwardly, he puzzled over Morgan's statements. He knew that Morgan had intended to be helpful with his comments – he would never have thought that the woman was attracted to him, and certainly wouldn't have intended to encourage her thinking of him that way. But now that he was aware of it, he wasn't sure what to do to resolve the situation. He reflected that, in the past, he'd always been too uncertain to be direct with a woman he had been attracted to, which resulted in plenty of potentially wasted opportunities, but also a few pleasant memories – Lila, Austin. And of course, Calla. If he relied on past patterns of behavior, then, hopefully, Juliana (he'd decided to pick a name until informed otherwise) would simply not do anything and he could just act as though there were no uncomfortable situation.

"I know this is going to sound silly," she said, in response to which Reid squirmed inwardly, thinking, _perhaps it is not going to be that easy_, "but, um, would you walk me in, Dr. Reid? I'd feel a little better if I weren't alone."

Reid glanced desperately out the windshield and through the driver's side window, hoping for a distraction or excuse. The Wyoming landscape remained quiet. A breeze ruffled through the overgrown grass in her yard. "Oh, uh, certainly, of course." He gulped. _I don't think you want to give her the wrong impression._

"But, uh, then I do need to go over to the Learys, to analyze the sightlines." He threw this out as a concrete excuse to delimit his time in her company. He had a brief visual memory of a public safety image: a flotation buoy, trailing by a thin cord into a desolate ocean.

"Of course." She smiled wanly. "I won't keep you." She got out of the car, picking up a large handbag.

Reid pursed his lips and put the car into park. He unfolded his limbs from around the driver's seat and unclenched his hands from the steering wheel. He thought he was perhaps unduly nervous, on reflection. After all, he hadn't encouraged the woman's attraction to him – assuming Morgan was right and it did exist – and he was behaving himself professionally. People were attracted to one another all the time in the world, and more often than not, nothing came of it. In fact, attraction was essentially an way to alter one's mood without the use of recreational drugs, stimulating the brain's dopamine and other "pleasure" receptors. Routine human behavior.

Even if he often felt himself several standard deviations away from routine behavior, he was at a point in his life where he didn't feel threatened by or excluded from it entirely. I have, he decided, nothing to worry about, he thought as he walked up the driveway, flashing Juliana a brief, polite smile. He had talked more than one armed assailant, and several people with severe mental disorders, into the course of action that he felt was optimal. This would be no problem.

Juliana hesitated before placing a key in the lock of her front door and turning it. The door, heavy, swung open silently to reveal a surprisingly cluttered house. There was photographic art on the walls, images of families and children, piles of magazines and newspapers. The kitchen was barely visible from the entranceway, but clutter was visible there, too – piles of bowls, pans, an electric hand mixer with some dried substance on the blades.

Reid frowned. If Juliana had been staying with her friend, he thought, how had she baked the cupcakes? He supposed it wasn't too much of an imposition to borrow someone's oven and dishes, if one were a houseguest. But would a woman burdened by what Juliana had witnessed likely be able to harness the mental energy to produce the baked goods in a way respectful to her hosts? He felt his unease grow.

"Thank you for coming in with me, Dr. Reid," Juliana said in a changed voice as she stepped through her doorway.

"No problem," he responded again, lingering outside the threshold. He knew that instinctive reactions and heuristics could lead one astray, especially in rational decision-making. But he also knew that humans had evolved to be particularly sensitive to danger, and sometimes, one's gut reaction was smarter than one's rational reaction. He also knew that he desperately did not want to go inside that house.

His thoughts raced back to the circumstances of the discovery of the Learys bodies. What had she said? She had been going to visit the Learys on the way home from work. No-one had bothered to verify that story at the time, because there was no reason to suspect her involvement as more than a witness. He debated internally, fiercely but briefly.

Could he learn anything by remaining here that could be useful in the case? What risks was he subjecting himself to, if he did so?

He was a trained federal agent, and as long as he remained outside, he didn't think that he could be in too much danger – unless she had a gun in her handbag. He didn't want to alert her to his suspicions by touching his own weapon, which remained holstered at his hip. Because he wore the gun in front, he couldn't handle it subtly.

However, his team knew where he had gone and what he had set out to do. They likely had insufficient grounds for a warrant to search her house, unless he could obtain some right now. She wasn't a likely flight risk - but she had left her home abruptly only to return now.

Reid was torn. He opened his mouth to say something as Juliana watched him expectantly. Just then, his pocket chimed.

"Is that your phone, Dr. Reid?" she asked, with a crooked smile.

"Sorry," he said sheepishly, smoothing a strand of hair away from his forehead. Juliana remained just inside her door, watching. She'd put her handbag down on a table next to the entrance. At least he didn't have to worry about her drawing a gun on him.

"That's ok," she said, "it happens to everyone." She looked at him fixedly while the phone chimed again. "I don't have a cell phone, myself," she said. She smiled, briefly. "Why don't you answer it? It's probably your team. I'll just get us a glass of water, and then you can be on your way."

Reid frowned. Her manner was not soothing his confusion or anxiety. However he knew the chime from his pocket meant the call was not from the BAU, but from Calla. They didn't often speak during the daytime, when either of them was working – the last time she had called during the day had been when she locked herself out of his apartment. He stared at Juliana's receding back. His phone chimed again.

He pulled the cell out of his pocket and wrinkled his brow. "Hello?"

"Hi, P." Calla had adopted that nickname for him after he complained that "Pen" made him think of Garcia. "I have some news."

"What is it?" he asked, one corner of his mouth tugging upwards slightly as he stared off into the northwest distance. She sounded pleased.

"I have a job! In Virginia!" He imagined the sentences the way they would look on paper, exclamation points after each. Calla Oliver was not a woman prone to speaking with implied exclamation marks.

"That's –that's great!" he said, with an exclamation point of his own. "What is it?"

A sudden motion near his left eye distracted him. "Uh," he said, pointlessly, as his eyes re-focused on Juliana.

She must have emerged from a side entrance while he was distracted by his conversation. He hadn't seen or heard her come up from behind him on the drive path. Probably because she was no longer wearing shoes. In her hand, she held a large, flat-bladed chef's knife. She held it with one hand, steadied with the other – like someone accustomed to weapons use . He noticed rust-colored specks on the handle. He swallowed.

"P?" He heard from the phone's tiny speaker. "You there?"

"Who is that, Dr. Reid?" asked Juliana, her mouth fixed in a slightly flat grin. It was an expression that usually signified repressed humour. "Is that the lovely Agent Jareau?"

Reid thought frantically. He knew very little about this woman, and, despite the violent turn of events, still wasn't sure whether she was responsible for any or all of the murders, or had some connection to the UnSub, or was simply complicating the situation. Morgan thought she was attracted to him – which could potentially be useful. He took a gamble.

"Uh, no, actually, no, it's not," he said, with more confidence than he was feeling. Disregarding his entire self-defense curriculum at the Academy, he looked into her eyes, rather than at the blade of the knife. "That's my girlfriend."

Juliana's face flashed anger, her brows drawing together. She stepped closer, pressing the tip of the knife exactly next to his carotid artery. He felt the tip digging into his skin slightly.

"You have a girlfriend?" she hissed.

Spencer swallowed. Wrong bet. Did he still have time to change his strategy?

"Well, actually," he began, conscious of the narrowing brown eyes looking into his own, "I do – but" he hurriedly continued, as he felt the knife begin to press deeper, "but she doesn't really know me. She- she doesn't make me feel good, I mean, I don't really love her," he said, watching Juliana's expression soften. The knife pulled slightly away from his neck. "She doesn't really understand who I am. I don't think anyone does. I didn't. But you," he continued, turning slightly to face her, and move his essential blood vessels farther from the knife point, "you do, don't you?"

Juliana nodded. Her eyes began to reflect the light more, indicating moisture build up.

He took another half-step to the side. She tensed up a bit, pointing the knife at him again. He slowly spread his right arm out, wide from his body, so she could see it was not a threat. Her glance darted between the knife and his arm, which he slowly extended towards her with an open palm.

He arrested his movement a foot away from her face (and, not coincidentally, the knife handle). "You see me for who I really am. You appreciate me. Don't you?" he beseeched her, as her gaze settled back on him. She nodded again.

He heard a slight noise from his lower left hand side, but ignored it for the present.

"Show me," he said, hoping he could delay the inevitable crisis that would result from her realizing she had an unsustainable solution long enough for his team to realize there was a problem. "I know you have something, something you want to show me. That's why you brought me her, isn't it?" He kept his gaze focused on her eyes.

Her eyes widened, and she nodded a third time. She took a hesitant shuffle towards him, dropping the knife just slightly. Reid's brow furrowed – the handle was once again out of reach.

"I, I do," she began. "I knew you'd see it, Dr. – Dr. Spencer."

"It's ok," he reassured her, "you can call me Spencer." Decrease the distance between us, he reassured himself, make myself approachable. She'll be less likely to hurt me then. If I can just calm her enough to ask her to put down the knife – if I do it now, she'll just be aware of the weapon. But if I can get her to a place she feels in control."

"Spencer," she breathed. And then, suddenly, she rushed at him, plastering her mouth on his. He winced, forcing himself with all his willpower not to pull back, if not to respond, at least not to push her away. Up close, she didn't smell very clean. Her breath smelled odd, reminiscent of some chemical reaction.

She pulled away as quickly as she'd kissed him, eyes wider than before, and raised the knife again. He wished desperately that he could wipe his face.

"Come," she said, waving the knife at him almost coyly. She freed one of her hands from the handle and used it to grab his left wrist. "You don't need this."

She pulled his cell phone out of his hand and turned it off. Reid realized what the noise had been. Calla. The line had been connected this whole time. She had heard every word.

**A/N: please, readers, drop me a word! This chapter went somewhere entirely different than I'd expected while writing it – what do you think? Thumbs up? Down? Too much cliffhanger?**


	19. SN: AFU

**A/N: this bit feels a little silly. I hope it's OK! Thank you for reviews and comments – and patience – so far!**

Spencer followed Juliana at wobbly knifepoint up the driveway and into the cluttered foyer. She must have lived here for quite some time, and there can't have been any recent renovations, he mused: her eyes did not leave his for a minute, and the tip of the blade hovered near his jaw. If she had looked away, he was reasonably confident he could have ducked and potentially even gotten the knife away from her. But the opportunity hadn't presented itself, and she didn't miss a step.

Inside, the home was plastered with photographs – mostly portraits and candid shots of children, infants, families. He spotted the Learys in a prominent position, and Ben Kole. A Kole family portrait was lower down, near the wainscoting. He frowned, momentarily distracted by patterns he was beginning to recognize in the positioning of the photos.

Juliana noted his gaze. "Do you like my work, Spencer? I'm the best family photographer here," she said with an initial flash of pride. It quickly soured. "Not that that's saying much. There's not a lot of competition."

Reid nodded, returning his focus to the knifepoint. Past the handle, he could see her eyes, darting anxiously back and forth. "Is this what you wanted to show me?" he asked.

Juliana licked her lips. "Don't you see?" she asked, desperately. "I knew you could figure it out, if only you saw my photos. From the first time I met you, you reminded me of Sherlock Holmes. Holmes could always figure it out. I know you can, too, right, Spencer?"

Reid opened his mouth slightly, experiencing the impulse to discourse on one of his pet literary analyses. Holmes was something of an irritant for him. Of course he knew that now wasn't the time – but he still had to deal with the thought.

Juliana's phone rang. Her eyes darted to the receiver.

Insufficiently confident in his training not to experience severe panic, Reid ducked backwards and lashed his hands out quickly at her wrist. Bony fingers grasped, twisted, and the knife dropped to the floor. The phone continued to ring.

Nonplussed, she stared at his hands grasping her wrist. She looked back up at him. "Shouldn't I answer that?"

Reid stared. Juliana was clearly suffering a psychotic break – this had been evident from the point she pulled the knife, and a possibility even before then. However, her recent reaction indicated an even more severe fissure from reality than he would have anticipated. He kicked the knife out of her grasp.

Soothingly, he answered, "No, uh, that's OK. You can let it ring."

"But I don't have an answering machine."

"That's OK. They will call back."

Subdued, Juliana nodded.

"I need you to come with me now, OK, Juliana? I need you to get in the car and to do exactly as I tell you." She nodded again.

Reid wore his gun, but wasn't equipped with handcuffs. He quickly scanned the house, looking for some restraint. At this point, a renewed attack on him seemed equally likely to an attempt to harm herself or simply to escape. This situation was too unpredictable for him to trust to probabilities and precedent. However, he was loath to go any deeper into her home: she was intimately familiar with it, and was likely to feel at her most confident here. Frowning, he let released his left grip, and caught her other arm, bringing it alongside the first. With both hands, he secured his grasp around her wrists.

"We're just going to go back to the car," he stated. Looking back at her face, he saw incomprehension, and a little fear. There was some part of her, buried deep within, that knew what she had done and was terrified of the consequences. He felt deep sympathy, and a desire to reassure her. "It's OK," he said. "We're both OK." Holding her hands in his, they began to walk back down the path.

K-K-K-K-K

Reid had managed to secure Juliana – to be accurate, Julisa – inside the car with rubber bands he had used to keep files together, apologizing as he did so for the pressure, reassuring her it wouldn't last. He then took five seconds to inhale and exhale fully before he picked up his phone and called Hotch to update him on the situation. Hanging up, he started the car, and glanced in the rearview mirror as he pulled away from the house. He frowned. He would have to return – with assistance, this time – to review the arrangement of photos, possibly to diagram them out.

As he considered the issue, impatience overcame his inclination to comply with Wyoming's laws against cell phone usage while driving and he called Garcia.

The response was somewhat unexpected.

"I am not going to fix this for you," she proclaimed, without even a salutation. "I know you're incredibly smart in some ways, but you'll never learn to be smart in others unless you do these things for yourself."

"Um, hello, Garcia?" he asked. He wasn't sure why it emerged as a question: he was certain of whom he was talking to.

"You've also taken up too much of my 2.402 gHz bandwith," she informed him.

They both paused. "Uh, your headset transmission frequency?" He looked over at Julisa. She sat with her hands in her lap, bound together by rubber bands. Her shoelaces were bound more tightly. He winced to see the edges cutting into her wrists. He briefly calculated the remaining estimated time until they arrived at the Fire District and the impacts of restricted circulation for such amounts of time before deciding to leave things as they were.

"Roger that," Garcia answered promptly. "First I received a call from one Calla Oliver who sounded as concerned as I've heard her outside of first-response situations. Then I was calling back and forth with Boss Man to determine if you were OK, what we thought we should send to help you, and what had gone on." Reid opened his mouth to respond, but wasn't given a chance. "Finally, I've just hung up with the Fire District and John Lambert, who are on their way to intercept you _en route_. . . you should see them coming up on your left any minute now."

"Ah. Okay. Thanks, Garcia. Hotch mentioned I'd have support, but said I should bring her in myself. Uh. I'm sorry for the – for the, confusion."

"Apology accepted," she confirmed brightly. "And, I've told the lovely Miss Oliver that you are alive and well and living in Wyoming. However, I think you owe her a call yourself." He briefly pictured Garcia's admonishing face, peering at him through a computer screen. A fluffy pen waved back and forth at the edge of the picture, threateningly.

"Uh, yes," he said, glancing back at Julisa. "yes, right. Okay. Uh, I was calling to ask you for your help with something," he began, and then stopped as he saw a pickup truck with earlybirds approaching rapidly from the left. "But, uh, there's the Sherriff, so I should have to call you back." He winced again as he hung up the phone. As much as he respected – and genuinely liked – the technical analyst, Garcia never failed to unsettle him. He often felt he ended conversations with her having said only 85% of the things he'd originally intended to cover.

He pulled the car over, confirming again that Julisa was quiet, secured, and that her door was locked, and got out. He gave a small wave to John Lambert, and immediately felt foolish.

"Thanks, Sherriff," he said, clearing his throat in an endeavor to present himself more professionally.

"No problem," Lambert replied. He bent down to peer through the driver's side window. He looked for a long moment, then straightened up.

"Why don't you collect your things, and I'll drive this one back to the District house," he said. Reid blinked, then nodded.

"Uh, in that case," he began, "may I ask your colleague to accompany me back to her house? There's some further analysis I want to do, now that the situation has been defused."

Lambert scratched behind his ear, thinking. "Well now, I don't see why not," he said. "I'll let them know where you are. The two men parted ways, each collecting his tools and paraphernalia from his respective vehicle. Reid introduced himself to the volunteer fireman who occupied the truck's passenger seat, and explained their task. The man looked at him, doubtfully.

"OK," he said. "But I'm driving."

Reid wondered whether JJ distributed some sort of memo regarding perceptions of his driving ability to local law enforcement for every case they worked. He reflected grimly that if they were ever dispatched outside of the U.S. again, he might at least have the opportunity to get places under his own power. Sighing, he settled into the passenger seat. As the truck pulled away, he caught Julisa's glance. She was beginning to become agitated, although she was now more appropriately restrained. Her mouth opened, and her eyes widened, her hands attempting to gesture in the confines of the manacles.

Lambert didn't meant Reid's gaze as he drove away, and appeared to pay no attention to Julisa. Confused, Reid settled back against the worn seat and attempted to parse all that had just occurred.

Several minutes later, his phone chimed. He pulled it open to reveal a text message. "If you don't want me to move up, you should get me kidnapped, not yourself," it read. "You're OK?"

His mouth quirked upward. Awkwardly, he typed back, "Yes. Very sorry to scare you and can't talk at length now. Thank you for calling Garcia."

Another few moments.

"What I'm here for. Glad you are safe. Talk soon."

Talk soon. The most reassuring communication he'd received all day.


	20. Talk the Talk

**A/N: sorry it's been such a long time since my last update – I really lost the thread for a while. But I have relocated my motivation, at least for now, and am hoping to wrap up the story soon – I have two more cases planned before the end. I really appreciate everyone's feedback and thoughts – thanks so much! Please continue to let me know what you think!**

Walking through the door to Julisa's house, Reid was so focused on whatever his subconscious had noticed about the photos that his conscious brain failed to register his visceral reaction at walking back through that door. The volunteer accompanying him did.

"You OK?"

"What? Oh, yes, I'm fine, thanks," Reid responded semi-absently, staring at the photos. The young agent had come to a halt still just inside the entryway, near the small table that held the phone. The plastic handset sat silently.

Frowning, Reid scrutinized the photos. He relaxed the muscles around his eyes, willing his focus to blur slightly, so that his pattern recognition wouldn't be unduly distracted by details. He knew he was seeing something. He just couldn't figure out what it was.

As the volunteer walked further into the house, looking around the cluttered rooms with his hands in his pockets, Reid started to catalogue the photos. There was some common element registering – a location, a type of face, a juxtaposition. Absently, his hand tapped his pocket for a pencil, and then, the touch jarring him back to consciousness, he pursed his lips, shook his head, and retrieved his phone.

"If they've kidnapped you again, my dear, you'll have more than just the Unit Chief to answer to," Garcia responded brightly. "Speak now, or forever hold your peace."

Reid was too focused to be flustered. "Garcia, I'm sending you several photos of photos," he began.

"Ooh, how meta," the technical analyst commented wryly.

Reid made a small noise, somewhere between a snort and a cough. He persisted. "I'd like to make a graph of types of photos in the order they appear on the walls – I'll be sending you shots from left to right and top to bottom, OK?"

"OK, _mon ami_," Garcia replied, more soberly. "Child's play for yours truly. What kind of graph?"

"I'd like the photos categorized by number of subjects, rough ages, heights, and any recurring objects – if the same table, for example, appears more than once."

"Or the same highly expensive toy replica firetruck?" she asked, more glumly.

Reid paused. He hadn't seen the firetruck in any of the photos, but that idea resonated more strongly. "Right. You know, let's include a list of any toys as well, OK?"

"Back in a jiff," Garcia responded brightly, and terminated the connection.

Reid spent a few moments carefully photographing the wall and sending the photos on to Garcia's screens. The volunteer fireman had wandered back outside, whistling to himself on the front stair while he waited.

As the agent finished his photographic survey, he took down several of the photos whose subjects seemed common, as well as the photos of the Learys and Koles he had seen initially. He placed them carefully between leaves of his notebook and replaced his phone in his pocket.

Just then, Julisa's phone rang.

Remembering her strange response, Reid hesitated, and then committed both a potential breach of protocol and his personal ethics. He lifted the receiver to his ear. "Hello?"

"Where is she?" The voice on the phone was male, rough. The articulation indicated at least high school level education, but probably not a white-collar job.

"This is Ag- this is her friend, Spencer," Reid said. He thought furiously. "She was just arrested by the fire department people. I watched them take her away."

This news was met with an expletive. "I don't know who you are, son," the voice continued, "and I don't like people I don't know. Where can I find her?"

Reid considered encouraging the man to trust him with a message for Julisa, or looking for more information, but he wasn't confident of success – and he didn't want the man to hang up the phone without perhaps encouraging contact with him. "I think they took her back to the station. I'm still here," he offered, feeling rather amused at the obvious statement.

"Fine." The man hung up with a click. Reid picked up his phone again on the way to the car, hurrying the volunteer along with him. "No, I know that even you couldn't be done yet," he acknowledged after Garcia's initial frustration. "But I need to know if you can tell us anything about this phone call. . . "

K-K-K-K-K

Garcia's maps and spreadsheets had come back before Reid had pulled into the Fire Department's driveway, but the answer still eluded him. Certainly, there were patterns in the way the photos were organized – perpetuating groups of 3, then 1 – but none of the BAU team could extract meaning from the pattern with what they had. Even Reid acknowledged it could be a meaningless pattern – just something Julisa had found aesthetically pleasing.

Identifying the groupings still hadn't assuaged the nagging certainty that he had seen something, and he was missing it. Reid puffed air out of his mouth in frustration, and put his hands behind his head as he stared at the photo patterns. Lost in thought, he started at a gentle tap on the shoulder.

"You holding up?" Morgan asked, eyebrows raised. "You did some fast work with that knife back there."

Reid squinted back at Morgan a bit. The older agent had often ribbed him about his lack of coordination and strength. He wasn't sure whether that was meant to be a compliment or a tease. "Yeah. Thanks," he said quietly.

"What's wrong, kid?" Morgan's eyebrows furrowed more, looking closely at Reid.

"I just –" Reid began, and exhaled again. "I'm seeing something here, I know I am. And I'm unused to being unable to figure out what I am seeing."

Morgan shook his head sympathetically. "Don't think we haven't all gone through this, Reid. Talk to me. Sometimes it helps to hear yourself say things, out loud."

"Okay." Reid arched his back to stretch it, and then pivoted to face the new corkboard, with the photo charts and the photos he'd taken pinned up to it.

"We have groupings of three, and then one, in several ways throughout this photo collection," he began, as though lecturing to an Academy class. "The green line" – he indicated one of many colored marks through Garcia's map – "indicates groupings of people, three here, one here, three here, one here, et cetera." He paused, thinking. "The red line represents repetitions of furniture – table, three chairs; one chair; table, three chairs. And the blue represents clusters of children's toys – three trucks, a ball, three stuffed animals, a" he craned closer, "a binky? I don't know what that is,"

Morgan interrupted, "That's a pacifier, Reid."

"Oh." Reid looked at him blankly for a moment. "As you can see, the lines converge around a roughly triangular area in the center. Three of the pictures I recovered came from that triangular area. Intentionally or not, this triangle likely represents an area of focus for Julisa."

Morgan stepped closer to the corkboard as Reid spoke. He had looked at the charts and photos with the rest of them, earlier: there wasn't new information here.

"We've identified the family in the third photo, but they couldn't tell JJ much about Julisa – they had only hired her to photograph their son's first birthday, they said, because they had been trying for some time to have a child. They didn't recall anything unusual about the party or about her behavior, although they did say it took Julisa two weeks longer than she said to deliver prints of the photos."

Morgan frowned. "Reid, did you recover any of her photographic equipment?"

Reid looked back at him. "The photos show no evidence of tampering – I sent high-resolution photos of these to Garcia to see if she could detect anything, and she said they were 'pure as the driven snow'." He winced slightly at the metaphor. "So we have four photos, each of three people – two parents and a child. Of these, two of the families have had recent victims, one has moved out of state, and the fourth hasn't experienced anything unusual. Chief Lambert sent someone to stay near the house."

The profilers were silent for a while.

Then, "Wait." Morgan leaned forward, stabbing at the photos with his finger. His poke was forceful enough that one rocked side to side on its pushpin as he explained.

"See that? In the photo of the Koles, they are all wearing name tags – white, with blue borders. In a corner of the photo of the Learys, you have a white table cloth with a blue fringe. In this one, you have a blue sofa right near the white border of the photo. Reid, do you know whose sign is white with blue letters?" Morgan's eyes had widened as he spoke.

Reid was already headed out the door in search of Hotchner. "The Billings Clinic."

K-K-K-K-K

Following Morgan's discovery (which he had downplayed in the recounting), the whole messy story untangled.

Andy Jameson hadn't only been a patient at Billings, and a cousin of Mindy Kole's. He'd also been the focus of Julisa's delusions. Julisa had never been admitted to the Clinic, but she had lost a brother to a suicide attempt shortly prior to Jameson's discharge. She had convinced herself that Jameson was really her brother, unfortunately also named Andrew, and had spent time following him around in an attempt to replicate closeness with her sibling.

She had seen all of the murders, or heard them. And she'd decided she needed to protect her little brother from discovery, so that she wouldn't have to face loosing him again. But the deaths of her friends brought her fantasy into an impossible clash with reality, and a desire to expose Jameson began to express itself, too. She'd brought Reid into her house in the hopes that he would uncover her secret and release her from the obligation of breaking what she thought of as her brother's confidence. It was a mess. The gory arrows had been pointing at her – Andy's attempts to indicate he knew he was being watched.

As he took down the photo charts from the corkboard, listening to Hotch tie up some loose ends with Chief Lambert, Reid reflected that their leavetakings often felt half-finished. Certainly, they'd apprehended Jameson, and they had uncovered Julisa's secret – hopefully, she'd be receiving treatment, and be able to live a happy life. Jameson would be ineligible for parole, whether confined to a mental institution or not. And yet, the families of the victims, the neighbors, the volunteer fire department – all of these people were left with unanswered questions, with lives forever changed by the events they had experienced. His expression saddened as he looked around the empty conference room. Sometimes, he wished there was more they could do.

After receiving a hearty pat on the back from Lambert, causing him to redden and look at his feet, Reid and the rest of the team drove back towards Buffalo to board the plane. Reid stared out the window at the passing scenery, musing.

Of course, his phone rang. Raising his eyebrows, Reid held the little machine to his ear. "Hello?"

"I've got a surprise for you, Young Einstein," Garcia chirped into his ear.

"You do?" Reid wasn't sure whether or not to be nervous.

"I do. Remember you'd asked me to pull together case files you'd participated in where we have records of journals, diaries, bound letters, the like?"

"Oh. Of course, yes. Why? Did we miss one, earlier?"

"Nope." He could hear the relish in Garcia's voice. Whatever she had, she was quite pleased. "But guess who kept a diary?"

Reid furrowed his left eyebrow, thinking. He had just opened his mouth to respond when Garcia cut him off.

"Not even close. Andrew Jameson. It'll be on your desk when you return."

"Huh, thanks Garcia," he said, feeling slightly foolish. The journal hadn't been part of the case – Jameson could well have been illiterate while they constructed the profile – and so he hadn't been interested in including it in his research. Still, it would make interesting, and hopefully useful background material for the case report.

"No problem. I know you didn't ask for this one, but after speaking to the Billings Clinic staff, I thought you might want to see it anyway."

"Okay," he said, somewhat puzzled. Garcia enjoyed working with an air of mystery, when no lives hung in the balance. "Thanks."

His thoughts redirected to his prior researches, he was somewhat startled when they pulled onto the tarmac in Buffalo. As he boarded the plane and set down his bag, he pulled his phone out once more. "Heading home," he texted to Calla. "Looking forward to hearing about the job." There was no immediate response, so he set the phone in his bag and opened the case file. He missed the tiny chime over the roar of the engines as the jet took off.


	21. Hurry Home

**A/N: Comments are love! Keep them coming! A domestic interlude before the penultimate (or possibly ultimate) casefic. **

The human body is a master allocator of resources. Especially in survival situations, it is capable of great feats of strength, agility, and speed; people can endure much more, when life is potentially at stake, then they can push themselves to undergo willingly. But no body can continue such feats indefinitely – once the peril is over, reserves must be replenished. All of which is another way to say: eventually, we all have to sleep. Spencer Reid is no exception.

Halfway through the flight back to Virginia, exhaustion overcame him. He set aside his files and passed into a long-dreamless sleep, only to be gently shaken awake by Prentiss as the rest of the team was progressing off the jet. He blinked awake to find her dark gaze fixed on him with amusement and concern. "Reid," she instructed, "go home and get some sleep. We've all got a day off tomorrow."

"Yeah," he said, not really meaning to assent to anything. "Thanks, Emily. You, too." Prentiss smiled warmly at him before patting him on the shoulder and obtaining her own things. Reid was the last one off.

Alone in the darkened passenger cabin, he could hear the pilot completing final landing tasks and chatter on the radio. The night was quiet around him. He yawned, stretched, and wearily shuffled down the ramp, passing some frustrated-looking ground crew whom he'd clearly been holding up. He ducked his head in apology as he went by.

The drive home passed quickly, through isolated pools of light from streetlamps; there was little traffic on the roads at this hour, and he didn't live too far from either Quantico or Sheffield. His eyes were closing again as he unlocked his door, stumbled in, and set down his bags. So he didn't see the little post-it with block print stuck to the coffee press near the sink when he walked in. He sleepily considered not brushing his teeth, but, recollecting the statistics on gum disease and heart disease, forced himself into the bathroom in the dark, carrying out the brushing and flossing by rote. He walked closed-eyed into the bedroom, and lifted the covers.

And jumped back with an exclamation when something _moved_.

"Wh-ahhh!" he yelled, and sprang backwards. For being so tired, he covered a surprising distance. He was answered by a heavy thud. Time seemed to slow slightly, a common result of intensified focus in times of danger, and there were moments of quiet, punctuated only by the sounds of fast breathing. He recalled Julisa's face, leering up at him from behind the knifepoint.

"Spencer?"

"C-Calla?"

A dark shape unfurled near the wall. Apparently, Oliver had thrown herself out of bed at the unexpected sound, landing in a defensive crouch. She released a puff of air. "Phew. Yikes. You scared me."

"I – Calla, _you _scared _me_! This is my apartment, after all! I mean, I didn't expect to see anyone here! What are you doing here?"

"You didn't see my note? I was positive you'd find it, the minute you came in. And I called you while you were on the way back."

Reid recollected his entry into the apartment. "I guess – I might have had my eyes closed," he confessed, sheepishly. He felt strong arms encircling him from behind, and soft hair falling on his neck as she inclined her head over his shoulder to kiss him. "I'm sorry, love," she said. "That's all you need today. Scary detectives staking out your bedroom."

He turned around to face her, hugging her back. "That's OK . . . it's, actually, it's nice to have you here. Once I've defused the hyperarousal stress-response." Exhausted as he was, Reid didn't want to move from where he was just then, wrapped in Calla's strong, warm arms. "But, what are you doing here? Did you just show up?" After the incident with the lock-out, Reid had given Calla several spare sets of keys to his apartment. So far, she'd only lost two of them.

He felt her arch her back to look at him – amusingly, because there was so little ambient light, even adjusted vision couldn't have picked out much. "I just got my job, and you'd just escaped a perp with a knife, so I figured a little welcome-home surprise and celebration might be in order. For both of us."

He considered. "If you called me, and left a note, what's the surprise?"

He was fairly certain it wasn't scientifically possible for him to feel her mischievous grin. Nonetheless, he was positive he had. "You awake enough for two minutes of light?" He nodded.

Calla led him by the hand through the dark apartment, back out to the kitchen. She flipped on the light and put a hand on her hip, the other holding a blanket in place for decorum. At Spencer's raised eyebrow, she mimicked a hula, briefly. "Pay attention," she said, waggling a finger. He looked around the kitchen, spotting the neglected post-it. After completing one visual circuit, he saw nothing else obviously out of place. He looked back at Calla, who pouted, comically, in disappointment. "Try harder, G-man. Don't they train you people to be observant?"

Rolling his eyes, and sighing slightly in feigned frustration, Reid sharpened his gaze. There weren't many likely hiding spaces in the kitchen area – his apartment wasn't that large. He _was _sensitive to things being out of place. At least in places he routinely used and observed. And, he thought gratefully, Calla's presence meant there wasn't anything likely to drop on his head. As he thought this, his gaze flicked upwards, involuntarily, and he saw a dark, rounded corner of _something _peeping out over the top of a rarely-used cabinet. His mouth quirked upward in a grin as he reached over and tugged the material. It was slippery.

"You know," Calla began, "you may want to use bo-" she was cut off abruptly as the whatever-it-was slid with unexpected speed off the top of the cabinet and slipped out of his grasp. It was not only fast, it was heavy.

"-th hands, ow." she finished, laughing, as a large, glossy bag stamped "Espresso Nuevo" collided with the arm she'd thrown up to protect her head from the impact. Another, smaller glossy bag lay at her feet. She lifted the coffee beans and set them gently on the counter, opening the cupboard as she did to reveal a blade grinder. "I figured we deserved the absolute best," she declared. Oliver picked up the second bag and offered it to him. This one contained no markings; it was also opaque. The contents felt blocky – they certainly weren't coffee beans. He hefted the bag, considering. What was this? Some kind of coffee related hardware? Sugar cubes? A big bag of dice? He looked at Calla again.

"Can't guess?" she asked, obviously pleased with herself. "I guess you're going to have to unwrap it, then!"

"Actually," Reid said, placing the bag down next to the coffee, and moving closer to the woman he loved – feeling suddenly awake and thrilled and grateful, "maybe I do." He tugged at one corner of the blanket Calla had wrapped around herself, and she let it drop. "You don't want to figure out the surprise?" she asked, lips brushing against his as she spoke. "It will be a surprise tomorrow, too," he explained. The bag remained on the counter.

K-K-K-K-K-K-K

For once, Calla had woken first, and, surprisingly, she'd slipped out of and back into bed without waking him. Spencer blinked his eyes open at the smell of coffee and found her propped up against pillows, reading. "Hrlo," she said, inarticulately, and swallowed. She reached over and handed him a cup as he scooted into a recline.

"Thanks," he said, closing his eyes and letting the steam from the cup mist over his eyelashes for a few moments before sipping. "What are you eating?" He'd been away for some time and didn't recall leaving much in the refrigerator or cupboards.

She looked at him and flung a hand back against her forehead. "Alas, you keep no nutrition in your apartment, ever, forcing me to fend for us both" She paused. Reid decided not to discuss the RDA fulfillments of energy bars. "I opened that other bag."

Spencer looked at her enquiringly. "Open your hand." He set down the mug on a bedside table and complied. His hand was filled with small box-like shapes wrapped in green foil. "Try one."

Spencer unwrapped the candy and scrutinized it for a moment before popping it into his mouth. He tasted a little salt, chocolate, espresso, butter. "These are fantastic," he declared, hurriedly opening two more. "What are these?"

Calla grinned back at him. "I'm almost afraid to tell you. Ketch" – one of the detectives from her precinct, and one whom she'd just helped through the loss of a partner – "just got back from Iceland of all places, and spent some time at a chocolatier there. He figured this would be an easier way to repay that bet he lost than what I suggested." Apparently, Detective Oliver believed in settling debts via friendly public humiliation. Her sweet tooth was well known. "He brought back enough, I decided he was right."

Reid chewed thoughtfully, and looked over at her. "Can you win some more bets?"

"Don't think I haven't tried," she laughed.

They spent the rest of the morning peacefully, drinking more coffee and consuming what Calla called "an _actual _breakfast", working on their respective casefiles from Reid's couch. They went for an afternoon walk in the park, and Calla described her job. Fairfax County had just over a million residents, and a sufficient crime index to be challenging for the new Deputy Chief of Investigations. Most of the senior staff at the Department were ex-military, but Calla's experience in New York, especially her liasing on anti-terrorist operations, garnered her respect despite not having completed boot camp, and she confessed to having dropped to the floor and done a hundred pushups during her interview in response to a gripe from one of the ex-military on that topic. Apparently, Major Ryan hadn't done any push-ups for a long time, and the other officers weren't shy about letting him know it.

She spoke with enthusiasm, and clearly seemed to feel that she'd be at home in the new Department, and was pleased at her title and new responsibilities – it had been a long time since Calla Oliver had been a simple beat cop, but she had still had plenty of patrol-type responsibilities in the 19th that she was happy to give up. Reid trusted her judgment as much as anyone's, and he knew she wouldn't have accepted the position if she weren't reasonably confident that it would satisfy her, at least initially. But he also worried that it would feel like a step back at times – certainly, the workload would be lighter many times than she was used to, and although she was clever, creative and thorough, he wasn't sure that Fairfax had enough crimes that called for these skills to keep her challenged. He was thrilled at the thought that she would soon be living with him – and yet, he couldn't help but ask, "You're sure this is what you want?" Calla stopped walking and turned to face him.

"No," she said honestly, "I'm not sure. But I don't think I can be sure. And this place represents a step up, at least on paper, and I felt comfortable with the vibe around the station. I think these are good people; I know I can do good work. The best thing I can do is take the plunge and see." She studied his face. "Do you know something I don't?"

"No, no, not at all. And I trust you, really, I do. I just want to make sure you feel like you really want to do this."

"Tell you what, P. As long as you cater to my every whim, I'll be just fine." She grinned, batting her eyes furiously.

He laughed. "Okay. But don't forget, _you_ make the coffee. Ow!" He was going to have to start wearing some sort of guards on his shoulder. He resolved to worry about whether Calla liked her job later.

K-K-K-K-K-K-K

Back at his desk the next morning, Reid chewed thoughtfully on a candy as he reviewed his notes on victims' journals. A new brown folder was slid into his field of vision, past some empty green foil wrapper.

"Conference room in ten," Hotch announced as he passed. Reid looked up and nodded. He opened the casefile and frowned. These bodies were extremely clean. They had worked cases like this before, like Roderick Gless, who embalmed his victims to death, or Samantha Malcolm, who also had left victims almost unmarked and lovely. But in each of those cases, death was essentially consequential – those perpetrators hadn't intended to kill. This case would be different.

"We have three victims," JJ said, opening photos on the conference screen. "All African-American, all mid-to-late twenties, all found within five meters of one another near a construction site, in various stages of decomposition. Local police called us in right away at the discovery of so many bodies. Initial background checks revealed a few surface connections between the victims, but nothing to indicate they knew one another."

Rossi, who had come into work later than usual, settled into his chair with a deepening frown as he took a cursory glance through the case file. "Wait, is this correct? All three victims asphyxiated as a result of alcohol poisoning?" The older man looked up quizzically. "He's killing them with alcohol?"

Morgan smirked back. "You're re-thinking that 50-year Scotch now, aren't you, Rossi?"

"It hasn't killed me yet," Rossi shot back. A glare from Hotchner quickly sobered everyone.

"Outside of the graves, is there evidence of homicide?" Morgan queried. "Are we confident that this isn't someone with a fetish for dead bodies of some sort?"

Reid piped up, "Generally, African Americans exhibit lower rates of binge drinking than the adult average, with the exception of one subgroup. Deaths from alcohol poisoning are generally rarer among women anyway, not only due to physiology, but also to social support systems and drinking contexts."

"So that makes it less likely," countered Morgan. "But I'm still not clear whether there's a direct connection."

JJ crossed her arms over her chest, looking back and forth at the team members as they spoke. "If you look at the autopsy reports, each of the victims also showed trace amounts of acetaminophen in her system. In sufficiently large doses, acetaminophen can cause liver toxicity that would make it easier to die of alcohol overdose. And finally," she paused, blue eyes drilling into each of them, "Kelly Miller was a Baptist. According to her family, she never drank."

The team discussed more details and posited some initial theories about the profile of the UnSub. They broke after twelve more minutes, each agent stopping by his or her desk before heading home to collect a longer-term go-bag. As Reid shouldered his messenger bag, he passed Rossi heading in the direction of his office. "Forget something?" he enquired cheerfully.

"No," the profiler responded with a rueful grin, "but I have to find a replacement lecturer for my spot tonight Academy."

"Professional lecture?" Reid enquired.

"No, actually. A good friend of mine is teaching the first-year behavior science course. He set up a number of informal 'brown-bag dinners' with experienced agents on a number of topics."

Reid straightened slightly. "Do you think the class would mind a change in subject?"

Rossi lifted an eyebrow.

"Well, first year classes also study antiterrorism profiling, specifically. And in that case, I might have just the person." Rossi assented, still looking bemused at the lack of details. He stood at Reid's side while the younger man dialed. "Hey, Calla?" Reid enquired. "What are you doing this evening?" Rossi took note of the younger man's blush and smiled inwardly. "Uh, no," Reid said hurriedly, glancing at Rossi and clearing his throat twice, "Uh, actually, I was wondering if you could step in for a lecture spot at the Academy." Rossi let his smile show. He'd been impressed with Detective Oliver initially, and anyone who could hold Reid's attention was more than a match for the young punks at Quantico. "Ok, great, let me pass you to Rossi and you can work it out. I'm on my way home to pick up my bag again." He handed Rossi the phone with another blush and ducked his head as he headed out the door.

Rossi placed one hand over the receiver and craned his head after the doctor. "Reid!" Reid looked back with a question on his face.

"You're going to want these." He pointed towards Reid's desk. His keys sat at the edge, near his coffee mug.

Reid's eyebrows ascended to his hairline as he strode back to collect them. "That's. . . never happened to me before," he commented to no one in particular as Rossi spoke into the phone. A green candy wrapper fluttered to the floor as he departed, narrowly missing the wastebasket.


	22. Imposing Order

**A/N: in rereading the last case, I think I wasn't as clear or consistent with the details as I would have liked to be. I promise to be more careful in tracking details and connecting them in these last two cases; I hope the first two were OK/better. You can tell me if you hate my guts for the detail issues with the previous case, and maybe I will be inspired to go back and edit? Please let me know if you have suggestions or comments – I love to hear from readers! **

The women had been discovered in Pepper Pike, Ohio, a suburban town in the northeastern part of the state. A development company had bought land in the area and was constructing houses at a fast pace; a construction crew had stumbled onto the grave on a cigarette break when they found a tatter of clothing drawn out of the grave by scavenging animals.

All three women had been carefully cleaned, dressed, and posed before they died. Unlike Samantha Newsome's victims, the clothing was their own, but it had been washed and pressed prior to internment. Their hair had been recently cut and arranged; even the fingernails were clean and had been cut prior to death somewhat short, so that when the bodies were discovered, the nails did not appear unduly long. "He cared how they would look after they died," Morgan had commented. "We've seen remorse, and even grave fetishism, but this feels different." The team agreed.

They had some initial contours on the profile – age, race, organization – but they would need much more development before it could be useful narrowing down the suspect pool. The remainder of the flight was silent.

K-K-K-K-K

Police departments in suburban areas were located more often than random chance would indicate across from gas stations. The Pepper Pike Police Department was no different. A multi-level brick building, it sat on a tree-filled lot across a five-lane road from a Sunoco. Reid decided that it was most likely the gas stations had been erected following the location of the police departments, realizing they could profit from the constant movements of patrol cars and witness arrivals. The team crossed over the grassy lot to introduce themselves to Chief Mariola.

The chief was an extremely thin man, apparently in his mid-to-late forties – almost as thin as Reid himself. The physique was unusual, especially among police in lower-crime areas. He gave his usual wave at his introduction, and followed the team into the building. Mariola had had set aside a conference room, and a junior-level officer was wheeling markerboards and an atlas into the room as Hotch spoke. "Agents Reid and Rossi are initially going to visit the gravesite, to see what we can learn from disposal of the bodies." He nodded at them as he spoke, and they pulled slightly away from the rest of the team. "Agents Morgan, Prentiss, and Jareau" – here JJ looked up, surprised at the departure – "will interview the families. Are any of them here?"

Mariola nodded, and hooked a thumb into his belt loop. "Yeah. Brenna Smith had only a mom, who is on her way. Mr. and Mrs. Miller you can see at Robertson's desk. They've been here since this morning. The Pruitts went home a few hours ago."

A stricken looking couple sat near the wooden desk, holding tightly to one another's hands. The woman clutched a handkerchief tightly that she dabbed at her face as they spoke.

"I will coordinate here and continue to look into victimology with our Technical Analyst at Quantico. Stay in touch." This last was directed at the BAU team, who headed back out the door in groups.

Reid and Rossi slowed down as they neared an unmarked car they'd been loaned for the project. Reid looked up at Rossi hopefully from next to the driver's side door. Rossi drove.

K-K-K-K-K

The construction site itself was generally unremarkable – foundation and certain support beams were in place for a large home, but the majority of work remained to be done. Tools and cigarette butts lay about in casual patterns, and the lot had been uprooted and mulched for the construction project. The FBI agents quickly walked off the edge of the lot to the gravesite.

The bodies had been buried in a series of shallow graves in a surprisingly open area. Reid observed, tucking a lock of hair behind his ear, "he must have been confident that he would remain unseen – lines of sight are clear in almost every direction."

"Yes," Rossi concurred, "except from the edge of the construction site, where it looks like most workers would be gathered to confer and get instructions." He looked thoughtful.

Puzzled, Reid frowned. "Do you think that means something?"

"Maybe," Rossi pondered, "I'm not sure. Perhaps he was ensuring that he couldn't be seen by an authority figure, the person in charge of the construction, if that person were there. I'm not suggesting he buried them during the workday, of course."

Frown deepening, Reid knelt down to examine the graves more closely. "You know," he began, continuing from Rossi's suggestion, "these graves are incredibly orderly."

"We already knew he was organized."

"Yes, but I mean more than that. Look – the women were all wrapped in blankets, and the blankets appear to be freshly purchased or at least freshly washed. The only compression folds are from where the blankets came into contact with the bodies – there are no marks from being folded and kept. Additionally, Each of these graves is free of rocks and debris – no sticks, no petals, no small traces of garbage. It's almost as though he cleaned the graves and set them up before conducting the burial."

"Someone with OCD, maybe? Or just a clean freak?"

Reid considered this.

"OCD usually manifests as a requirement to engage in repetitive behaviors, or an obsession with cleanliness – that doesn't seem to be clearly indicated here."

"OK," Rossi said, "so we've got Mr. Clean."

Reid straightened up and stood, cracking his back slightly into alignment. The ME's report couldn't indicate a window for time of death narrow enough to be clear whether the women were killed at the gravesite or not, but given the cleanliness of the scene, both profilers doubted the actual murders occurred there. Death by asphyxiation was never pretty, and always left signs of a struggle.

"You know," commented Rossi, "dead women are pretty heavy."

The construction site bore many tire marks, almost all from large vehicles. There was no way to separate out those that might have belonged to the UnSub. But there were certainly no tire marks on the grass near the gravesites, and no obvious evidence of wear – no treads of wheelbarrows, no torn grass or sod. Rossi shook his head, and they proceeded back to the car.

"Don't even think about it, kid," Rossi said as Reid reached for the door handle.

Back at the police station, family interviews hadn't come up with much. Two of the three women had been religious, but those two observed different branches of faith; one hadn't been to a religious ceremony since childhood. One woman was athletic, one had a dog. The only connection was somewhat tenuous and had to do with their professions.

Kelly Miller worked as an Administrator for the Cleveland Orchestra and sang in her church choir. Adrienne Pruitt taught art at a local grade school. And Brenna Smith, when she wasn't working as a dental hygienist, had acted – and starred – in plays at the East Cleveland Theatre.

"So all women are involved in the arts in some way – but not in the same arts." This from Rossi.

"Well," observed Hotchner, "Kelly Miller sang, and Brenna Smith's acting occasionally involved her in musical theatre. It's possible that Adrienne Pruitt also had vocal talents, in addition to her teaching responsibilities, and we just haven't learned about them yet." The Pruitts were on their way back to the station house following a call from JJ.

"Do we have recent pictures of the victims – not autopsy photos, preferably candids?" asked Reid. Jareau looked up from where she'd been sitting quietly and nodded at him. She pulled out two small photographs, prints from local drug stores. In one, a young woman with a natural hairdo and headscarf was bending down over a child's desk, looking at an art project. The kid had his hands smeared with paint and a beatific smile. This must have been Adrienne Pruitt: none of the three women had children of her own. She wore bohemian clothes in bright colors, and near the edge of the photograph, Reid could see a green plastic feather apparently stuck to a hem.

The second photograph showed a slightly heavyset woman wearing multiple brightly-colored layers and a hairdo that was a rainbow of colors. Reid thought briefly of Garcia as he noted a feathered headband on top. She wasn't fully captured in the frame, but the photo showed thick boots, purple leggings, and orange and yellow draped fabrics. Brenna Smith, at a local protest rally, carrying a sign. "The Millers brought a photo of Kelly," JJ offered, "but so far Detective Robertson has kept it with them at his desk." Three sets of FBI eyes turned towards the Millers, still hunched in grief.

"We already know the women didn't look much alike," Hotchner offered.

"True," Reid mused aloud, "but there may be a way in which they do." He set the photos of Pruitt and Smith next to one another on the conference table. "Both women are wearing loose clothing, not tailored. Both have, uh, what might be called 'expressive' hairstyles. In this photo of Adrienne Pruitt, you can see traces of school art materials stuck to her clothing; here, to the left, Smith's hem is coming unraveled."

He looked up from his speech. Hotchner looked puzzled; Rossi simply looked watchful. Perhaps he'd already arrived at the same conclusion – or, at least, he could see where Reid was going with this.

"Both of these women present what might be called a 'messy' exterior; involvement in the arts for a son can be looked down upon by male parents who are laborers or former military as being nondisciplined or frivolous or uncontrolled. Rossi and I found signs of extreme caution about tidiness and order at the gravesites – it could be that these women's jobs and appearance presented a stimulus of disorder that the UnSub felt provoked to 'clean up' by killing them and putting them to rest."

Hotchner frowned thoughtfully. "And the bodies were carefully cleaned and pressed and groomed before they were buried – the way these women looked in their graves was much more formal and reserved than how they appear in the photographs. I think it's more likely we have a military background, either for the UnSub or for a controlling parent, than just a blue-collar one. The military is highly focused on tidiness."

"And has a reputation for overindulgence in alcohol off-duty that isn't entirely undeserved," Rossi threw in.

"Good work, Reid, Rossi," said Hotchner. "JJ, why don't you go talk to the Millers. Pursue this line of thinking. See if she knew anyone from a similar background."

JJ nodded, shuffled together some files and notepads, and got up from the table. Hotch picked up the phone to call Morgan and update him on the progress they'd made on the profile. Reid sat down and began to study the maps provided by Chief Mariola.


	23. Family Matters

Pepper Pike was very green in the satellite imagery, like much of the Midwest. It contained a large interstate highway, running roughly southeast, and was reasonably wealthy for the area – the maps showed a number of country clubs, golf courses, private schools, culture centers, and even a private college. The presence of a college would increase the number of younger people compared to surrounding areas, and provide additional public gathering places.

Reid frowned. The construction site was equidistant from several main thoroughfares; the victim's residences and workplaces didn't correlate with one another, nor were they evenly spaced with respect to the gravesite. Garcia, he knew, was correlating credit card and bank statements and even ATM locations for indications the women shopped, ate, or recreated at the same place but she hadn't called yet with any information: he could assume that meant she hadn't found anything. The key piece of data to make sense of this map wasn't yet available. There weren't any military bases nearby, or recruiting offices; no veterans' organizations of any size were within the city limits. Reid ran a hand through his hair, considering. He probably wasn't going to make much headway on a geographical profile, given the information at hand. He chucked the maps aside, and stretched his folded arms over his head, preparing to stand.

Then he reconsidered, leaning forward and picking up the phone.

"I'm still running that credit card data, but I haven't discovered anything yet," Garcia said, without introduction. For a moment, Reid considered pretending to be someone else, and then reflected that Garcia could probably trace the call. In fact, she could probably trace the call and calibrate the phone lines to deliver painful frequencies to his ears. He swallowed.

"No, that's fine, Garcia," he said hastily. "I was wondering if you could also provide a list of anyone registered with veterans organizations in the surrounding area who lists a residence or next of kin in Pepper Pike." There was a brief silence.

"How surrounding is 'surrounding'?," she asked. "Also, most of this information is not publicly available – and some of it may be protected – so I'm going to have to call the, quote, surrounding, veterans' groups and ask nicely and get back to you."

Reid considered. It wasn't likely the UnSub himself was registered with a group serving older veterans – although he might well have a parent who was. The profile so far indicated he was in his late twenties to early thirties, just old enough to have spent time in Afghanistan or Iraq on one or several tours. He was clearly fit and healthy and therefore didn't seem to be receiving medical services.

"I'd like to focus on any groups providing social services, meals, or job counseling to younger veterans – not retirement or health services. In fact, I'm not convinced the UnSub would take advantage, or want to take advantage, of job counseling, given the time he has devoted to these murders; it's likely he also avoids recreational gatherings. The most likely sources would be providers of meals, religious services, and then expand the search to job services only if there are no results."

"OK, Reid-of-all-trades, I will investigate and report back forthwith. 'Swift and quick as shadows I will be'!"

Reid frowned slightly, and responded, "Fellowship of the Ring," into the dial tone. He still couldn't understand why Garcia insisted on quoting things to him and then hanging up before he had a chance to respond. He had identified all of her quotes to date, even though she often altered them from the original.

While the technical analyst worked on his request, Reid got up and walked towards the main room of the police department, noticing the Millers rising at a desk just as he entered. Mr. Miller, a heavyset man with close-shaved hair, swung a large arm in circles as he spoke.

"Look, I appreciate what you are saying, Detective," the man said, the strain in his voice clear to listeners. "And I appreciate you spending the time to talk with me and Muriel" – here, he gestured in his wife's direction. "But the fact of the matter is, we have been in this department time and time again in the past week, looking for news of our daughter. Hell, we've been looking for evidence – any evidence – of serious efforts made to find her. And now that you have found h-her," the man's voice broke momentarily, and his wife looked fiercely down at her lap, "and you tell me you can't tell me anything that's being done to find the man who killed her." There was a momentary silence in the middle of the room, punctuated by telephone rings from other desks, low murmurs of conversation, and noises from the breakroom.

"And I can't help but wonder," Miller continued, "whether that has to do with the _composition_ of this Department and how it compares to my daughter. My family." Miller folded his arms across his chest and glared at the apparent Detective, who had risen to face him during the speech.

Reid noticed Hotchner behind him, who had rapidly escalated his approach on the word "composition." He quickly covered the few remaining steps to the desk where the Millers stood.

"Mr. Miller? I'm Agent Hotchner, with the FBI. We've been called in to consult on your daughter's case. It is my responsibility that the Detective has been unable to provide you with details of the investigation at present." Hotch fixed the man with his cool gaze, brows furrowing slightly. The Detective sat back down at his desk, gazing carefully in a direction away from the Millers or the BAU supervisor.

"Would you like to come and discuss your concerns with me and my team?" Hotchner asked.

Miller looked somewhat embarrassed; in his case, this stiffened his resolve – and his politeness. "Yes, sir, I would," he said, glancing at his wife. They stood and followed Hotchner into the conference room Reid had just vacated. "Reid." Hotchner fixed the young agent with a meaningful glare; Reid gulped slightly and followed. He wouldn't consider addressing sensitive racial issues with victims' families one of his specialties. Fortunately, Morgan, who hadn't yet settled down to anything, followed them in.

The fivesome entered the conference room, and Hotch closed the door while gesturing at the rest to sit.

"Mr. Miller," he began quietly, as the Millers craned slightly forward to hear him, "I want to address your concerns and assure you of the FBI's commitment – and the Pepper Pike Police Department's commitment – to finding the man who did this to your daughter and bringing him to justice, swiftly." The Millers nodded, warily. Mr. Miller opened his mouth to speak.

Hotchner continued, cutting him off, "but before I do that, I want to ask you for more information about the circumstances of your daughter's disappearance. We haven't been made aware of those circumstances, and they could contain clues that will help us find this man. So I would like to ask you to talk to me, and Agent Morgan, and Dr. Reid, about that initially, so that he can begin to analyze that information. And after that," he paused, looking at each of the Millers in turn, "I will address any questions you have."

The Millers looked at one another, and an unconscious decision was made between them. "OK," Mr. Miller said. "OK, then." He breathed deeply for several moments, and began to tell the story. Reid was so focused on the details, he barely acknowledged JJ as she came in and sat down, midway through.

The Police Department had failed to inform the BAU that Kelly Miller had been reported missing a week prior to the discovery of her body. Her professional duties occurred on a fairly regular schedule; her disappearance had coincided with planned leave time, and it was only because she hadn't appeared at choir rehearsals that her absence was discovered as quickly as it had been. A church member called her mother, who called the police department when she couldn't reach Kelly after an hour. The family had put up fliers, called her friends and co-workers, and some church members had even engaged in foot and car patrols, searching for any clues to her whereabouts. Several church members had been particularly engaged, offering food, support, and participating in the searches. As the family finished the tale, Reid met Hotchner's eyes and received a brief nod. He ducked his head at the Millers, and left the room, closing the door gently behind him as JJ and Hotch continued to talk.

He was making his way towards the desk where the Millers had sat, only to be confronted by Chief Mariola. "Doctor Reid," the man said, looking at him quizzically. Reid just looked at him for a moment, lost in the cascade of ideas the Millers' conversation had sparked. "The Pruitts are here," the Chief continued, "and ready to speak to the FBI." He nodded towards a closed door, with lights visible through a frosted window. "Is that you?"

Reid sensed the Chief's scrutiny, just as he had seen the involuntary flicker of his gaze when he asked, "is that you?" He knew the Chief wouldn't have asked him first if there had been another Agent visible. Morgan and JJ were still closeted with Hotchner and the Millers. And Prentiss had seemingly vanished.

He knew the momentary reaction was illogical – especially because, given a choice, he also would have preferred not to be the person to speak to the Pruitts. And yet, the constant doubt expressed by outsiders who didn't know him at all was occasionally, briefly, galling. He squared his shoulders. "Yes," he said, meeting Mariola's gaze, "it is."

He walked into the room and opened the door without a single glance behind him.

The Pruitts sat at an oval table, holding hands. Mrs. Pruitt had a cup of station coffee next to her, and was watching the steam curl out of the cup. Reid looked at the two.

"Hi," he said gently. "I'm Dr. Reid, and I'm with the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit. We're working with the Pepper Pike Police Department to find –" he paused, thinking of Hotch's phrasing and the effect it had on the Millers "-the person who did this." The Pruitts looked up at him. Mr. Pruitt was visibly older, wrinkled, and grey-haired. He passed a chapped hand across his forehead. Mrs. Pruitt's face screwed up as Reid concluded his introduction. "I'd like to talk to you a little about Adrienne," he said. He saw the couple's hands tighten on one another. He swallowed, and began.

K-K-K-K-K

Eight minutes later, Reid emerged from the conference room, leaving the Pruitts behind to console each other. Not seeing Hotchner on an initial pass, he walked towards the team's dedicated conference room and put his hand on the knob, starting back slightly as the door opened. The Millers walked past, seemingly calmer than when they had entered. Hotchner looked at him, and lifted a brow.

"Both Adrienne Pruitt and Kelly Miller had been reported missing to the Police Department; in each case, friends and family had conducted a search, and posted fliers for several days. And although none of the names the Millers gave us were directly familiar to the Pruitts, there was one they knew as a first name, a friend of a friend of Adrienne's."

"Who wa-" Hotch began, interrupted by his cell phone. He glared at the display and flipped it open. Garcia's voice piped through. "OK," she began, "there were sixteen names I got from veterans' organizations – and honestly, Reid, from the amount of calls I was making, I'd say this little part of Ohio contributed more than its fair share to the war effort." Hotchner began to open his mouth, but Garcia rushed along.

"You hadn't given me anything to narrow down the list yet, so I have sent the entire set to your phones. I did want to point out, however – it's just one connection – but one of these gentlemen had made donations to Kelly Miller's church. Jim Vosser."

Hotch's eyes met Reid's. Reid nodded. The Pruitts knew that a close friend of their daughter's had recently encountered a "Jim", on two occasions, when the pair were out to dinner. Jim had approached their table at the first encounter, and during a long conversation with her mother, Adrienne had mentioned that she found the man uncomfortable.

"Garcia," Hotchner directed, "what do we know about Jim Vosser's family circumstances?"

"Coming right up, he-sir," Garcia replied. "Let's seeeee . . . Dale Vosser, Lieutenant Commander in the United States Navy, honorably discharged after service in Korea and Vietnam – hmm, interesting, apparently, he requested reenlistment during the most recent campaigns, but it doesn't appear he's returned to active duty status."

"His wife, Maryanne, died –oh, that's so sad – just over 18 years ago. There's not much there – a brief obituary mentions that she died of a concussion. I have property records here, the family moved to Pepper Pike in 1993, and have resided there since – Jim has records of enrollment at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, about forty minutes away, but no evidence he completed a degree." Garcia ended her delivery with a customary snap, awaiting the next instruction.

Hotchner's customary frown deepened. "Thanks, Garcia," he said, and ended the call.

Fumbling through his phone, Reid identified the address of Dale Vosser and added it to the map of key locations. A quick review indicated several potential connections, but no clear resolution. Garcia had said that Jim had no address currently on record, and that his rent checks went to a property management company that administered 27 rental buildings in Pepper Pike and Mayfield Heights; she hadn't yet figured out which codes corresponded to which buildings.

He continued to gaze at the map while the Rossi and Prentiss filtered in, completing the team. "In this case," the Supervisory Special Agent said, looking up at his colleagues, "we may have identified the UnSub prior to providing a profile, due to interviews with the victims' families. However, we have not yet located him, and given the indications that his father's military service heavily influenced his life, we need to decide how to advise the local officers with respect to the arrest." He paused, waiting for one of his team to chime in. "Additionally, there is value in confirming the information we have so far."

He nodded at people as he named them. "Morgan, Prentiss. I'd like you to interview Dale Vosser. Learn as much as you can about Vosser's upbringing and family circumstances." The pair began gathering their things. "Reid, continue to work with Garcia to narrow down likely locations for Jim Vosser. Use recent financial history and any other information you might obtain. Dave and I will talk to Chief Mariola and his team." The BAU nodded at one another and hurried off to their respective assignments.

**Thanks for your patience, readers, as I struggle with this case! I've been having a hard time trying to figure out how to link important information together. But, if you think this case has no more surprises – think again! The best is yet to come, and I hope, soon! Thanks for reading!**


	24. Thanks for the Memories

Reid was still in the conference room on the phone with Garcia, cross-correlating myriad facts including ATM withdrawal locations, gas mileage, the restaurant where Adrienne Pruitt and her friend had met Jim Vosser, when Hotchner and Rossi rushed in. "Go ahead, Prentiss," Hotchner said, into his open phone. Reid paused, and looked intently at the other Agents.

"Hotch," Prentiss began, with her characteristic questioning inflection, "I'm currently outside in the front yard of Dale Vosser's house. He wouldn't speak to me, and was obviously uncomfortable with my presence. He's in there talking to Morgan now."

"I suppose that's not entirely unexpected," the SSA confirmed, "many military men whose partners have been long deceased are uncomfortable around women, particularly if they haven't had regular interaction with any for a while."

"I agree, sir," Prentiss concurred, "and I'm not calling to complain about my feelings. However, this was more than routine male discomfort – Dale Vosser seemed actively _angered_ by my presence. And this was before we explained why we were there. It was just – striking. Additionally, as I was leaving, I heard Morgan begin to ask him about his son. The initial part of Mr. Vosser's response didn't indicate he thought particularly highly of Jim. Finally, there is evidence of recent digging all around Vosser's property. I can't be sure it's related to this case, but in connection with everything else. . ." Prentiss trailed off.

"Thank you, Emily." Hotchner cast a significant glance at the rest of the team. Across the table, Reid started, and then turned slightly away from his colleagues, talking excitedly into the phone he'd been holding away from his ear.

"Garcia," he said, "are you still there?"

"Ever vigilant, ye small and mighty," she retorted.

"You mentioned that the obituary of Maryanne Vosser indicated she'd died from head trauma, is that correct?" Not waiting for a response, he continued, "Give us everything you have on her death – ME reports, death certificate, anything you can find." He paused, and then began relaying information from the technical analyst to Hotchner, JJ, and Rossi.

Maryanne Vosser had died of a concussion, at home in her bed, three days after she had seen a doctor at Huron Hospital, in the company of Dale and Jim. She had no previous admissions which would indicate a history of domestic violence, and appeared lucid and calm. The doctors sent her home with a painkiller after doing a rudimentary examination for trauma or concussion.

An autopsy revealed painkillers and alcohol in her system – a large amount of the former, but not an overdose quantity, and a small amount of the latter. No additional trauma was revealed; the autopsy notes were sparse. Apparently, the ME had decided he knew what had happened to Mrs. Vosser prior to conducting the examination, and made only sufficient findings to support his conclusions.

Rossi looked up from the table over steepled fingers. "Painkillers, alcohol, then death – that remind anyone of anything?"

The team shared a glance. Hotchner and Rossi held one another's gaze for a second longer. Hotchner picked up his phone. "Morgan," he said, "we need to focus all our efforts on finding Jim Vosser. However," he glanced around the room again, "I'd like you and Prentiss to bring Dale back here with you. Use the pretext of assisting us with our investigation. Have Prentiss sit directly behind him on the way back and comment occasionally on the victims we have found so far." He closed the cell with a click.

K-K-K-K-K

Both the BAU and the Pepper Pike Police Department had spent the past forty minutes searching for Jim Vosser. Dale's house had been ransacked by the SWAT team, who was now staked out around it – including a sniper on the roof of a neighbor's house. There were several plainclothes officers at the restaurant – the BAU had indicated that Vosser would likely have an adverse reaction to uniforms as sign of authority and regimen, and might bolt if he detected police there. Officers were at the Millers' church, at each of the victim's houses, at the graveyard where Maryanne had been buried, and in several other locations. There were roadblocks and patrol cars. And still, nothing.

Part of the difficulty lay in identifying the man. His expired driver's license photo showed a chubby, close-shaven redhead with a military flattop haircut and a fierce glare. Grainy video from the bank ATM showed a startlingly lean, unshaven man who looked a his feet and lurched back and forth. Even Garcia's comparative software could only offer 83% certainty that this was indeed the same man. The shape of his face looked different, even to the FBI Agents seasoned in piercing disguises - unsettling them and further complicating the search. Minutes ticked by as negative reports continued to flow in.

Dale Vosser was seated alone in the second conference room, the one previously occupied by the Pruitts. He'd previously been accompanied by Morgan, JJ, and Prentiss – the arrangement of agents calculated to activate his prejudices.

The strategy had borne fruit – Vosser exploded at Jareau when she asked him sweetly about the death of his wife, placing a hand on his shoulder, and widening her blue eyes. This gave Morgan the opportunity to be alone with the man, glaring into his eyes, drawing on his military respect for authority – no matter what color that authority's skin was. "Sir," Morgan had said tightly, "I think you know your son did this. And I think you know he should be put away – not only as punishment for his crimes, but also to protect the other innocents who could fall prey to him. And, I think you can help us make that happen."

Vosser had glared back, lips pursed tightly shut. "If I knew where that worthless piece of – that _thing _has been a disappointment to me from very early on, _Officer_, and you had better believe that he would have been brought to justice before now if I had any idea where he was." He and Morgan engaged in a staring contest for a full minute before Morgan jerked a file out of Vosser's hands and walked back to his team.

"I believe he's telling the truth – at least about the last part," Morgan began, calmly. "He was used to disciplining Jim pretty harshly from a very young age – I think he's infuriated that Jim has grown beyond his control now, and would relish the chance to reassert that control."

"However," the agent continued with a slight grin, "I have also managed to obtain a set of fingerprints – he should have an index, middle, and thumb on the tab of this folder. I know there wasn't a crime scene processing done at Maryanne Vosser's death, because there wasn't a suspicion of crime but I figured there is also a chance these could be useful." He handed the folder to a surprised Jareau.

"Great," she said, "I'll have the Department process these and send them to Garcia. I'll also see if she has managed to pull up any other records on the death."

K-K-K-K-K

Reid had remained alone in the conference room, staring at maps and a printout of financial correlations from Garcia's research. He saw patterns forming, and then dissolving as he ran out of support for the ideas. He was currently operating on the idea that Vosser was actually avoiding his father's house – or would normally avoid the house – and, if he drew a boundary around the house, the victims were arranged in a pattern in relationship to that boundary. But there still wasn't enough data.

Something else was occupying his attention – some lingering clue that he hadn't consciously processed but that his unconscious seemed to think was important. He frowned, and cocked his head to the side, consider the maps. As he thought, JJ entered, speaking to Garcia.

"And of course," the blonde agent said, "he would have left prints all over his own house. Still, these were lawfully obtained, and it can't hurt to have them on file. You said Dale Vosser doesn't have prints on file already, right?" She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear as she listened to the response.

Reid allowed himself to be momentarily distracted by what JJ was saying. There was something suggestive in her conversations – if he could just isolate what it was. He repeated some of the more compelling words aloud, softly, trying to determine where his interest had focused.

"prints. . file. . . his own _house_ – wait, that's it!" He concluded, excitedly. "JJ!

Although they were all used to the process of Reid's sudden insights, that didn't make any single occurrence any less surprising. JJ's eyes widened as she turned on one foot, phone still held to her ear, to stare at him.

"Ask Garcia if Maryanne Vosser's medical records contained any explanation of how she got the concussion – if she told the doctors anything about how it happened." He craned forward in his chair, as though just waiting for an opportunity to spring up and start running.

Her gaze softened for a moment, as she listened to Garcia's response, and then refocused on the expectant doctor.

"Garcia says the doctor made a note that she had struck her head on something in a part of the house they were expanding."

Reid nodded eagerly, confident now he was on the right track. He pitched his voice louder, knowing JJ had angled the receiver towards him so Garcia could hear what he said.

"There must be building permits, records – being a military man, Dale Vosser probably insisted on doing as much of the work as he could, himself, and probably insisted that his son help him. But for most people, certain aspects of construction require help, whether they like it or not: plumbing and electricity are common examples. Garcia – can you get records of any contractors, plumbers, electricians, or otherwise who helped the Vossers complete the work on their house?"

JJ had brought the phone back to her ear for the response, so Reid couldn't hear what the technical analyst had said. Whatever it was, it garnered a smile. JJ closed the phone with a soft click, and looked back at him.

"She said you'll have something in a few minutes – sent to the department fax so you don't have to use your phone."

Reid launched out of his chair as though an eject button had been pressed, and almost skipped out of the room towards the fax machine in the main area. He glanced briefly at the coffeepot on his way there, but didn't detour. He bounced briefly up and down for a few moments, looking at the placid machine, and bent down quickly when it began to make noise. He grabbed at the sheets, gently pulling them out of the feeder once the printing margin had been reached.

He'd finished scanning the list before he could retrieve the papers, of course, and walked back to the conference room cross-checking the names fiercely against case data. There was still not yet a clear link – but he could almost feel the connection throbbing in the air in front of him. He yanked the conference room phone and quickly called Garcia back.

"Garcia – HLF Homes, they are responsible for the construction site where the bodies were found. Do they have any connection to the list of contractors working for Dale Vosser in 1993?"

"Let me see. . . cross checking ownership records, Ohio state corporate registries. . . nada. Okay, let me expand the search to cross reference employment histories and suppliers. . . ok, here – Benjamin Franklin plumbing has two suppliers of plumbing goods in common with HLF, and the two firms have had two employees in common, a Dominick Richards, and a Mason Revay."

"Mason Revay – Mason Revay is a partial anagram of MaryAnne Vosser. Is it possible that Jim Vosser took a job with first Benjamin Franklin and then HLF Homes and used an anagram of his mother's name as an alias?" Reid's eyebrows spiraled upward in surprise. They hadn't profiled this kind of deceptive behavior from the UnSub, at least not until recently.

A small silence from Garcia. "Mason Revay's driver's license photo looks a lot closer to the guy we saw in the ATM videos than Jim Vosser's license did," she said solemnly. "Revay worked at Benjamin Franklin from 2002, and moved to HLF in 2004," she reported. "Both firms indicate they have I-9s for their employees; but if Revay has a driver's license that looks this legitimate to me, I can't imagine it wouldn't fool them. And – Reid. He was given notice that he was being laid off just three weeks ago. Right after the anniversary of his mother's death."

Reid's eyes had remained wide during these revelations. "Thanks – thanks Garcia," he said, and hung the phone up. He sprang back out of the conference room and went in search of Hotchner.

K-K-K-K-K

A portion of the Pepper Pike Police Department had apprehended Jim Vosser – aka Mason Revay – on another of HLF's construction sites, where he was goodnaturedly arguing with another hard-hatted worker over the placement of a drain. Morgan, Hotchner and Rossi had managed to catch up with them in time for the apprehension. They relayed to the team how Vosser had frozen and tensed up at the approach of the uniforms – and cast a single despairing glance into the corner of the site before apparently deciding to come quietly. He walked towards the group with his hands up, and his head down, riding back to the stationhouse in silence.

The man who emerged from the car looked very different from the Jim Vosser they'd become familiar with from his past documents. His hair was now a dark brown – he'd been dying it since assuming the Revay persona. The angle of his cheekbones was different; his nose and earlobes were reduced in size. He'd clearly had cosmetic surgery to transform his image. Dale Vosser didn't even react as Jim was marched past the conference room where he was still seated – clearly, he hadn't seen his son since the transformation.

But the ignorance did not run both ways. Hotchner deliberately turned Jim so that he could see into the conference room where his father sat while he obtained Vosser's fingerprints – having previously dwelt calmly on what had been done to the victims, and how they must have suffered in death. Vosser started shaking, and then lunged in his father's direction, growling deep in his throat.

As Rossi had suggested, Vosser claimed that his father had killed MaryAnne, poisoning her with the alcohol and medications as she struggled to heal from her concussion. He suggested darkly that his father had caused the injury in the first place – and had spent the rest of his life, ironically, drinking to suppress the memories. Dale rose ponderously to confront the man, visibly struggling with the idea that this was his son. And then, surprisingly, he deflated, and sank back into his seat, sobbing into his folded hands.

As Vosser was led away for processing and arraignment, Rossi looked at Morgan. "Perhaps I should start rethinking that Scotch, after all," he mused to the younger man. "Clearly, Dale Vosser ended up forgetting a lot, until just now."

"Actually," Reid chimed in, "clinical evidence shows that alcohol use only confirms the memories one is trying to suppress by drinking, because the mind becomes focused on certain thoughts when intoxicated, and the reviewing of those neural pathways is integral to memory storage and development." Rossi just looked at him, wearily. Morgan shook his head and chuckled.

K-K-K-K-K

When the team reconvened on the jet some hours later, Reid smiled to himself as Rossi halted in front of his seat. The young doctor had the chance to run a brief errand prior to leaving the city. "What's this?" the older man asked, lifting a quizzical eyebrow as he hoisted a black, cardboard box.

"Ca-Deputy Chief of Investigations Oliver wanted me to thank you for the opportunity to lecture at the Academy," he explained. "Her presentation was really well-received. In fact, it sounds like she's in discussions to pick up a recurring lecture spot on counterterroism at Quantico in the future."

"I bet she was a big hit," smiled Rossi warmly at him. "Thanks, Reid," he said. "I'm happy it worked out for us both."

"Don't forget to look at the card," Reid admonished.

Rossi's eyebrow shot up higher, which Reid wouldn't have thought was possible. He located and opened a small, square card affixed to the top of the box with tape. "Thanks. . . for the memories," he read out loud, slowly. "Cute," he commented.

Reid grinned to himself and settled back for the flight home.


	25. On The Road Again

**A/N: Boy, it's been a long time, hasn't it? I'm sorry for the lapse! But the writing bug has hit me again, and I'm not ready to leave Double Take behind, so we're starting out on our next case. . . now! I'll try to be better about posting these chapters faster (though I am on vacation for a week starting Wednesday.) **

As the team exited the plane, they slowed and reformed a small group around Penelope Garcia, who was standing on the tarmac, electronic tablet in hand, waiting for them. Hotchner assumed the dominant position in the little circle, his brows drawing together to darken his gaze from the more relaxed "case is over" expression he usually wore on the ride home. "Garcia," he began, patiently as always with the quirky analyst, "why are you out here?"

She lifted large, liquid eyes to meet his gaze; Reid caught the light reflecting off of what must have been tears. Garcia's lip shook slightly, but her voice remained steady as she began. "Sir," she said, "not that I don't appreciate the virtues of clean laundry and nights spent at home, but the local P.D. in Dallas have requested your help, and. . . well, I thought I'd better come out as quickly as possible." A brief shudder gripped Garcia's shoulders; in short, pink dotted sleeves, she had clearly underdressed for the weather. Reid looked back and forth between her face and Hotchner's. The latter's face only grew graver, if possible. "And you weren't able to reach us in the air?" he asked. "No, sir," Garcia said, shaking her head vehemently. "Sir, I trust my encryption like I trust the vorpal blade in Alice - uh, never mind – but, in this case, I agreed that we wouldn't transmit anything to you electronically, no matter how secure the transmission was."

A beat, a nod. Garcia continued. "Part of the issue, sir, is that each of the bodies were found at his computer, screen open to private banking systems. Local police believe that the case therefore is involved with encryption somehow – although, I'm not sure I agree." "Each," Hotchner interrupted, an eyebrow lifting, "how many are there?" The rest of the team gathered in more closely.

"Yes sir. A third body was found twenty minutes ago, and Chief Greene called Director Strauss to ask for our help." Noticing the expressions on everyone's faces, she added quickly, "I guess he is friendly with Patrick Johnson." Morgan nodded strongly, "The Kane case," he piped up. Shoulders that had been raised at Strauss' name dropped a bit. She'd stayed out of that one.

Garcia's plaintive expression intensified as she looked at them all. "The three victims were each found, as I said, in front of their own personal computer screens, in each case, with a login to the victim's personal banking information. But no funds appear to have been transferred, and the account security doesn't seem to have been compromised – and, in fact, none of the men had even logged into his account, according to the banks' IT departments, within four hours of his body being found."

JJ shook her hair in slight frustration. "What happened to them, Garcia?" she asked. Garcia swallowed, and Reid knew from her expression that the crime scene photos were likely to be grisly. "Cause of death in the first two cases is. . . undetermined," she said slowly. "Each of the three victims is missing all of the fingers from a hand – two right, one left – and in the first two cases, and likely the third, this appears to have been done before he died." She swallowed again, and looked briefly at Morgan for support. "Oh!" she said, and blinked. She rifled through an oversized yellow bag and pulled out six folders. "Your hard copies, since ix-nay on the email-ay."

The team took the folders and opened them as Reid jumped in. "Exsanguination from that kind of amputation would take a long time – it would be incredibly painful, certainly, but the victims would have had time to seek help or assistance in at least one of the cases, before bleeding out." He steepled his hands and looked at Garcia expectantly.

"Right you are, wunderkind," she said wearily. "The Dallas ME doesn't think that blood loss is the cause of death."

"Garcia," Hotchner said, warningly.

"Right, sorry sir," she said. "Each of the first two victims was also brutalized in several different ways, which is why the ME isn't always sure what killed him. The first victim, Earl Munroe, was shot in the stomach and appears to have been suffocated with a pillow (or something filled with down). The second, James Kinroy, was strangled with his own belt (which he was wearing when they found him) but also was found with large amounts of fluid in his lungs and pulmonary edema."

"Wait a minute," Morgan said, shaking his head. "This doesn't make any sense."

"I never said it did, sweet cheeks," Garcia said ruefully. "And finally, Marcel Greene was found with an _arrow_ in the side of his neck, as well as foam around his mouth, apparently like you'd find in drug overdoses."

"Greene," Reid mused aloud. "Is that- ?" At the same time, Prentiss said, with wide eyes, "wait, an _arrow_?"

"Yes," Garcia said, blinking her eyes, briefly. "The Chief's nephew. And yes, an arrow."

The team shared a somber glance. Working with law enforcement was always an interesting set of negotiations, but it became exponentially more difficult if emotions ran high. And an _arrow_?

"OK," Hotchner said. "We're on our way. Wheels up." The team shifted their bags, and turned back to the jet, where the pilot straightened up at their approach, intuiting the change of plans. Morgan briefly squeezed Garcia's arm as he turned to go. Garcia hugged her tablet to her chest. "You know where to reach me when you can call," she said wanly, as she watched her family troop back up the tiny stairwell in the darkness. Reid spared a brief thought for Calla as he made his way to the seat he'd just left. He supposed he'd have to wait to hear how the class went in her own words.

The plane lifted into the night sky, bound for Dallas. And as it did, a young man in Mesquite, TX, less than 20 minutes from Dallas, cracked his knuckles for what he didn't know would be the last time as he flipped open his laptop screen.

K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K


	26. Four's a Crowd

At least the flight time between Virginia and Dallas was mid-length; about 2.47 hours. At least they weren't headed to the far reaches of the West Coast. Still, Reid would have welcomed the opportunity to stretch his thin frame a bit before sitting back down in the padded seat – the angles weren't quite conducive to work, to him, at least not initially. Once he got absorbed in a file, he could usually continue without noticing physical discomfort for some time; it just took him longer on long flights on the jet. He arched his neck to the left, wincing slightly at the cracking noises that ensued.

"Watch out, kid," Morgan commented. "At this point, we're all feeling jumpy enough your neck could have us pulling our weapons." Hotchner looked up briefly from his own file and frowned. Morgan bent his head back over the folder, running a hand over his scalp as he did so. "I see why the MEs are confused about cause of death," he began, "but the methods are so varied, it doesn't read like a forensic countermeasure."

"Could it be some kind of test or ritual?" Reid wondered aloud. "Maybe the UnSub wants to leave the death of the victims in the hand of fate, or some other power – or maybe it's just a way of distancing himself from responsibility for the consequences."

Prentiss nodded. "I agree – the UnSub could use these acts to justify himself as not really being a killer – something else decides how these men die."

"What I don't understand," Rossi chimed in, leaning forward, "is why they didn't call for help - or go for help. None of the wounds, painful as they must have been, would have killed these men immediately. And each of them appear to be young and fit – in great health. There's no evidence of restraints, at least not from these reports. So how come none of them called 911?" The team sat silently for a moment, considering.

"Especially because at least the first two cases show signs of forced entry," Jareau said. "And I'd bet when CSU finishes processing the most recent scene, we'll see the same there. See – scratches on the lock at Munroe's house. And the doorknob was actually splintered around the lock at Kinroy's place."

The team looked at their files or at one another in puzzlement. "Several things about this case don't initially make sense," Hotchner began, slowly. "And so I think it will benefit us most to head to the most recent scene, to see what impressions and evidence we can gather. Morgan, Prentiss – I'd like you to go to Marcel Greene's apartment on landing. The rest of us will dispatch to the remaining crime scenes from the department."

The team took this signal to settle back into their seats, perusing files singly or in small groups as the plane carried them to Dallas. Reid spread out the crime scene photographs across his lap, shuffling and reshuffling them in various arrangements. He paused, shuffled, and then reverted the photos to their previous arrangement. He lifted his head and looked around for someone who wasn't engaged in conversation. "Rossi," he ventured, "look at this." The older agent got up with a slight grimace, and made his way to the seat across from Reid. "What have you got?" he asked, his eyes focusing intently.

"I'm not sure it means anything," Reid began, "but here, in Munroe's photo – the one missing fingers on his left hand, his wallet is placed almost within reach of that hand. And there, in Kinroy's apartment –" "- the wallet is just out of reach of the right," Rossi finished, "which is where _he _is missing fingers. Interesting. What do you think it means?"

"I'm not sure," Reid said, again. "Is he taunting them? Is there some connection with the banking screen? The killer might be focused more on something to do with the victim's finances than with computer security." Reid bit his lip slightly, considering. Normally, he'd call Garcia and ask her for some information about the credit cards and banking cards each victim had in his wallet, but in this case, they'd all agreed to be careful about electronic transmission of information. He pushed his hair back from his forehead, and flipped open the tablet.

The screen showed Garcia in mid-gulp, a mug raised to her face as one hand continued to type furiously. Without any facial reaction, she swallowed, and barked out, "Penelope's House of Saving Your Ass is a bit full right now, sir, can you call back later?" Reid swallowed, himself. "Uh, sure, when you get a moment, Garcia –"

"No idea when that will be," she muttered, thunking the mug down hard and jostling the contents. Reid momentarily wished for a giant mug of coffee himself. "Shoot."

Reid looked around briefly, oblivious to Rossi's amused grin in the background. "Well, you know, those friends of mine – Earl and Jim – they were talking about some new technology they just got introduced to – something where they don't have to actually swipe their credit cards or something. I figured, since you're the technology expert, you could maybe look into it for me. You know." Garcia looked up and met Reid's eye. She grinned and sat back slightly at her desk. She'd gotten the message.

"For you, Reid, my technological genius will be limited by nothing! Let me finish some paperwork I'm on here, and I'll hit you back." With a confident thwack, Garcia signed off. Reid just had time to see a fluffy pen pivoting out of the holder and angling towards the cup.

"Well, let's see where that gets us," said Rossi, leaning back in his chair. "In the meantime, maybe we can learn more from the various choices of weapons. Guns, pillows, belts, fluid, drugs – and an arrow. Where is he going with all this?"

Reid sat back and pondered, and the two men batted theories around on the long flight away.

K-K-K-K-K

James Greene was actually somewhat short – maybe 5'8" (1.73m) – and stocky, with broad shoulders and a wide chest and stance. Introductions were made to the Chief and his staff, hands were shaken, and the BAU were escorted to the conference room. Boards were set up and Reid pinned photos and maps, stepping back with his hands on his hips, thinking. Just like usual.

JJ and Hotch had gone to the Munroe scene – all the murders had occurred recently enough that it was likely the scenes were intact, and in fact Kinroy, where Rossi had gone off to himself, was still under guard because the crime was so fresh. He didn't expect to hear any familiar voices. So he jumped slightly when behind him, from the conference room's open door, he heard "Dr. Reid?" He swiveled and felt his mouth open slightly in amazement as he found himself face to face with Ryan Jameson. Calla's former partner. This was _not _how things usually went.

"Jameson? What are you doing here?" he asked, dismissing the thought that he was so tired he'd begun hallucinating.

"Hey, I wasn't sure you'd remember me." Jameson looked briefly pleased, folding his arms on his chest. Then his expression quickly sobered. "First, I'm here to deliver the bad news. There's been another murder, same M.O. A young man by the name of Manuel Javier was just found in Mesquite, face down, fingerless, in his apartment in front of his desktop computer, with the screen set to an HSBC login page. He appears to have been strangled – but first responders also found evidence of bruising around the face and arms which would indicate suffocation."

"He's repeating his methods," Reid mused aloud. "Hmm." His eyes refocused on Jameson. "Did they find a wallet near the body?"

Jameson looked down at the piece of paper he held. "Not noted here, but I will ask for you."

"OK, thank you," Reid said. "I'll call Ho-Agent Hotchner and let him know. Mesquite is only 20 minutes away by car," he said, looking at the map, "and accessible by several highways. Do any of them have surveillance cameras?" Jameson paused, and scratched his head. "There should be cameras along a part of 175," he began, "although there has also been a lot of vandalism of traffic cams. I don't think there's much along 20 or 635, though. The Chief has already contacted Agent Hotchner, so you know."

"Thank you." The two men stood in silence for a moment, each in his own separate thoughts about the case. Reid bent down to shuffle some papers and pick up a pin for the location of the newest victim. "Let me know what they say about the wallet?" he asked, without looking up.

"Sure thing," Jameson said. Reid heard his footfalls nearing the door. "I'm glad you're here, Doctor," he added, pausing at the threshold. "When I heard the Chief announce he was calling your team in, I let him know about the Ward case. I didn't think I'd be facing two of them." Another pause. Jameson made a sound with the paper he'd held, and shuffled a foot. "Everything good with Oliver?" he asked, his voice straining slightly with the awkwardness of the question.

"Ol- Calla? Yes, yes, she's doing well. I'm sure she'll be glad to know you are, too," he said, distractedly.

"You bet," Jameson replied. There was another beat before the footsteps left. _I wonder what that was all about_, Reid thought briefly. Squaring his shoulders, he decided he'd think about it later, if he had time. For now, the escalating number of bodies demanded his full attention – this was almost a spree killing. Four bodies in three weeks. He was so intent on the maps and photographs as he stood, one hand still resting atop his head, that he missed Calla's chime on his phone.


	27. Life Is A Highway

**A/N: Sorry guys, I think I'm a bit rusty after the long hiatus – I hope that you're still enjoying the story! Let me know if you feel I've struck any wrong notes below, and I am trying to work up a longer chapter for you soon – I know these have been running short. And welcome, new readers! Feel free to go back to Chapter 1 for the backstory, or start with this case!**

Reid, struck by an idea a few moments later, turned away from the photographs and scanned frantically around the conference room for the appropriate tool. Pens, pins, flags, markers, and an empty coffee cup were all visible, but no ruler or measuring tape. Frowning, he stepped hurriedly out of the conference room door, and made eye contact with Jameson. The officer was in conversation with another officer, the report on the newest victim still in his hands. He appeared to stop mid-word when Reid caught his eye, and shot his colleague a look Reid couldn't decipher while he walked to meet the young agent.

"Can I help you, Doctor?" Jameson asked, his brow furrowing a little bit.

"Yes," Reid began, his words tumbling out in a rush, "I just need some kind of a ruler or measuring tape- I'd like to measure the distance between the victim's hands and their personal items placed on the floor." As he finished his sentence, he realized he'd provided far more information than Jameson needed.

An eyebrow quirked up slightly. "No problem," the man said, and took a step away. "Actually," he continued, "I was going to go back and let you know – you were right about the wallet. They found one with the body of the latest victim." There was a pause while both men considered this information. Each angled his head to the opposite side of the other. Then Jameson came to himself, quickly, and opened a drawer, handing Reid a soft tape measure. "Here you go," he said.

"Thanks," Reid said, absentmindedly, his body bent forward as he hastened to get back to the conference room. Jameson watched him hustle away with an indecipherable expression, his arms folded across his chest, crime scene report still in one hand.

Back among the photographs, Reid quickly measured the distance between each victim's hands. He wasn't at all surprised that his suspicion was confirmed: the distance between them was extremely similar – down to 1 cm of difference (some of which might be chalked up to differing camera angles used by CSU.) He quickly called Hotcher to request that he measure this distance and the new crime scene, too. The UnSub had to be extremely good at estimating distances visually, or he brought along some kind of tool to create the consistent distances. Reid thought briefly back over the crime scene photographs, but couldn't recall anything with measuring lines on it at the scenes, nor any common item of standard size that could have been used as a substitute. Even the men's wallets were different sizes from one another.

His eyebrows lifted. The distance between the victims' hands and the wallets ranged from 8.5 cm to 9.5cm. The longer side of all American credit cards (and most state driver's licenses, too), was 86 mm. But what could that mean?

He lifted his cell phone again to call Hotchner; perhaps the rest of the team would find the information useful. It rang as he flipped it open. He frowned at the screen. "Hello?" he asked. "Garcia found that the four victims all banked at different primary banks – or, three of them did. But all four had recently received a payment from or opened a new credit card with a regional bank that none of them used as a primary –that's the only financial connection, so far. There don't appear to be bank personnel in common, though, at least not yet. It will take some time to run through the financial history, but Garcia is looking for unidentified transactions across all their accounts, or common contacts – or even dollar amounts." Reid nodded.

He felt, rather than heard, someone looming behind him, and turned quickly, phone still to his ear, expecting for some reason to see Jameson. Instead he found himself face to face with the Unit's most famous author, eyebrows lifted in a combination of impatience and curiousity.

"Well?" Rossi seemed to say, as he spread his hands. Reid covered the mouthpiece with his palm, as though to respond, when Morgan spoke up again.

"Reid? You still there?"

"Yes, yes, Morgan, I'm still here," the young agent replied. "Sorry, Rossi just arrived back from the Kinroy crime scene." He quickly related his discovery to Morgan, who promised that a a photo of Javier's hand would be on Reid's cell momentarily. Reid nodded, hung up, and then swiveled to face Rossi, planning to bring him up to speed quickly and then head over to ask Jameson to print out the crime scene photograph for him. The phone's display was too small for any kind of reliable measurement.

However, midway through his recitation, Calla's former partner appeared with another sheet of paper. This one caught the light. Reid paused in mid-word. He was starting to feel irrationally frustrated by Jameson's sudden appearances – even though he'd planned to seek the officer out, himself.

Rossi, sensing something in Reid's expression, took the initiative.

"Yes, officer? Do you have something for us?" he enquired.

"Just a printout of some crime scene photographs Dr. Reid requested," Jameson said, handing them to Reid while maintaining eye contact with Rossi.

"And, doctor," he continued, "I just wanted to let you know that we are feeding that satellite imagery from 175 to your technical analyst, and we have traffic pulling camera feeds off of the smaller highways as well." He nodded and left the room, with Rossi's thanks.

Rossi quirked an eyebrow as he turned back to Reid. "Something up with that one?" he asked, mildly.

"Uh, no, no" Reid hastened to assure him. The two agents turned their focus back to the crime scene photographs.

K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K

Penelope Garcia ran her hands through her copious hair, tugging on some curls as she did so. She uttered a sound that Reid thought would be a significant challenge to transcribe in the English alphabet. The entire BAU Dallas presence had reunited with grim faces around the precinct's coffee table.

"Nothing," she said, "pure nothing. No common bank staff. There are four branches of this bank, and the victims used three of them. The branches don't even share a security firm. I mean, yes, eventually there's a top level supervisor who signs off on the whole structure, but he's not even in the state currently and never had contact with any of the victims for these transactions. There are no common payors or payees across all of them. Some of the victims did shop at similar places, in person and online, but never all of them, and not with any unusual patterns. Like, Greene bought his groceries at the same place, once a month, as Munroe – but only that once a month, which is when he had other activity that only happened at that time. There is no financial evidence that they ever met one another."

The team's faces remained unchanged as Penelope continued her litany. "The murder weapons were all bought at different places at different times – at least those we can trace, and those are the ordinary ones. Ballistics on the gun doesn't match anything in the system. " Another pause. Still no change.

"Kevin and I have been focusing on the traffic cameras, and I've been using new software I've been working on with DHS, trying to identify vehicles that are the same, or have the same plates, across the different feeds - but that is taking time, and we are also trying to confirm with visual reviews. All the victims had their own cars at their homes, but we're including those, too, and keeping a log of everything that's flagged. . . but so far, I don't think I have anything useful."

"Thank you, Garcia," Hotchner said, his brow furrowed. The technical analyst hung up, rather abruptly.

The head of the team – in all but name – looked around, making eye contact with each of the agents in turn.

"So, we don't have much to go on, right now, in terms of evidence," he began with his customary slowness. "But we do have some elements of a profile." He looked at them meaningfully, waiting for someone to chime in.

Morgan began. "Well, given the makeup of the victims, it's likely the UnSub is a male, not over 40. The use of multiple weapons often indicates a younger killer, but in this case, the planning and methodical nature of the crime scenes – the lack of forensic evidence, and Reid's point about the placement of the wallets – suggests greater organization than that. He's probably no younger than 25."

Prentiss continued, "While most serial killers are white, something about the way these victims' bodies has been placed suggests that the killer is black or Hispanic, closer to the races of his victims. Whereas white killers who kill people of different races often do so to express hatred or fear, these victims were arranged carefully, and in home settings – as though the killer felt comfortable where they felt most comfortable."

"And Munroe lived in a neighborhood where a white person would have been pretty noticeable – even given the distance between plots of land there," Reid finished.

JJ chimed in with a discussion of the lack of crime scene evidence. The care the killer had taken to clean up after himself – successfully – not only let them know that he was good at cleaning up, a person who knew how to use various cleaning products well, but also that he had a reasonable amount of time, no less than thirty minutes, at each crime scene before he left.

"That brings us back to an original question, though," Reid pointed out, his brow furrowed. "_Why_ did he have so much time? His victims didn't die right away. There wasn't anything physically or chemically preventing them from calling for help, or leaving some more traces of struggle, or even possibly clues, if they knew they were dying. Why would they wait there patiently in the same room as their killer, waiting to die?" A moment of silence followed this question.

Then, Prentiss: "Maybe that's just it." The team looked at her expectantly. "They did seem to just sit there patiently. Each of these men – reasonably fit, healthy mean – had some time in between losing his fingers and the death blow – which he did not use to escape, or fight back, or do anything that disrupted the final crime scene at least. Maybe the UnSub convinced them they deserved to die, or that they wanted to."

"Or maybe," added Rossi, "he got them to participate."

"What do you mean, Dave?" Hotchner asked. "Well, I was just thinking," Rossi said. "None of them appeared to have unusual financial activity, I know. And yet they were each found in front of a login screen for a bank account. Each of them had a wallet, a symbol of everything he owned, just out of reach of his fingers. And some of those fingers were removed, like the ritual of punishing a thief."

"Or," Reid added, "like 指詰め – amputating portions of a little finger in atonement, like the Yakuza do in Japan."

"Right," Rossi agreed, nodding quickly. "And, if the UnSub was engaged in some kind of lottery, some kind of gamble, about what would eventually kill each of these men – it's possible that somehow, he involved them in it, too."

"I think that's an interesting theory," Hotchner said, his face darkening as it always did when the methods of a brutal killer began to become clear to the team. "But, of course, the only way you can convince someone to keep gambling," he said, looking up again, "is to convince them they have a chance to win."

The team sat back as a unit in their chairs as Hotchner pulled out his phone. "Garcia," he began, and paused to frown at whatever she'd responded this time, "keep Kevin on the traffic cameras. But I'd like you to get us any records on other recent amputations of fingers – non-lethal ones this time. And please flag any correlations with gambling, or hunting." Now, they had a direction to follow.


End file.
